Shitty Casual

Factorio is the defacto factory-building game by Wube Software. After your ship crashes on a planet, you must harvest resources and research technology until you can build a rocket to escape. In the meantime, the Biters living there are most displeased with your encroachment, and reasonably seek to destroy everything you've built.

Factorio has been on my short list for a while now because I went through factory phase and every time I researched this type of game the answer was always, "Play Factorio." A lot of people say Factorio is the last factory game you'll ever need, so I took their word for it and played a few others first, understanding all roads would eventually lead here.

I took the plunge this weekend because I needed something to distract and occupy my mind, and it has been wonderful. The overhead view makes it much easier to build than the first-person perspective in Satisfactory, and the early game balance of building and fending off the Biters (as the local wildlife is known) provides a nice push and pull.

My first factory I expanded a bit too aggressively and my factory was too sprawling with minimal defenses, so when my pollution (I think?) got high enough to trigger recurring waves of Biters I was constantly on defense and felt like I was treading water repairing defenses and manufacturing ammo and couldn't really catch up.

I love restarting factory games! Starting over with a nice open playfield is really satisfying after I've set up a Frankenstein mess out of my control. So I already started a new game. This time, I'm keeping things scaled down and slowly building up defensive pockets. My first map had pockets of the 4 main resources all together. This map has stone, which is vital for defenses, a ways away, so I'm taking a more modular approach.

I'm to the point where I need to double up my power grid, but last time doing that may have been what triggered the increased Biter activity, so I'm gonna focus on solar panels which have zero pollution for now and keeping the current factory chains I have as efficient as possible. I'm overloaded with copper plate, but iron is always needed. I checked the wiki and confirmed copper wire is used in electronics and a few others things, but I'm probably gonna condense and retire about half of my copper setup soon to focus more on iron.

Anyway, this is a very fun game if you like to optimize All The Things, free form spacial puzzle solving, and build manufacturing chains with the occasional hazard break. Researching and unlocking technologies means there's always something new to push for and try out. The goal of the game is to build a rocket and escape the planet.

On a technical note, you can purchase this game direct from the website and get a DRM free offline version plus a Steam key. They have mod and multiplayer integration through their site, and the whole thing is polished and gives a nice sense of community. The game has tons of starting options and a few different scenario types. You can really get lost in this one, and I plan on it.