A true nerdish delight.

Dyson Sphere Program feels both fresh and familiar. A big piece of this game is building logistics, similar to Factorio. You’ll mine ore, create smelters, assemble features, and then build upwards. But unlike Factorio this isn’t about a single planet. You’ll be able to travel planets and build bases. At least I assume so, it takes a long time to get going on this game.

However the addictive elements of Factorio are still here, and after three hours of playing I had to choose between losing myself in the game or stopping for the night, I stopped but it was close. However this is still in Early access, which is a shame because it’s so well done, but major features appear to still be missing such as enemies to fight.

Pick this up if you like Factorio or any of those nerdy games I like. Pretty much anything by Zachtronics probably would put you in the right area for this title. Honestly, this feels really well done, and highly polished to the point that I’m likely going to be coming back and spending way too many hours here.

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Has some trouble in a couple of areas. Some things, like awkward controls and weird gridding, can be easily forgiven by the impressive feat of making every map a literal sphere and not inducing motion sickness or confusion every time someone tried to move. Most of DSP's issues are tiny ones like this, little roadbumps that get ironed out of (at time of writing) early access games like this.

The part that makes DSP harder to bite into is progression. The research tree is poorly organized and some tech have unlisted shadow-prerequisites, early-game oil recipes produce waste that needs to be managed, a majority of crafting intermediates don't have any actual use. The game pushes hard for quality logistical management in interesting spaces, but really not much else. This turns factory planning away from rate management to the much more annoying task of resolving complicated production chains. Dyson Sphere Program asks more for good algorithmic subsection design without really rewarding it, and barely asks for good factory design overall.

But I'm still optimistic! The game is still pretty good! Maybe after I finish it I'll come back in a few years and see if the kinks have been ironed out.

I've been playing several factory sim games lately and this is a really good one. If you're looking to get into the genre, I'd say this is a good starting point. There's no heavy math involved as opposed to Factorio, and overall it's a relaxing experience that lets you go at your own pace. Shooting between different planets is really fun, and I'd consider that the main draw of the game. My one big complaint is the amount of grinding you have to do right at the very end to finish the main quest. Otherwise, I think this is going to be an excellent game once it leaves early access.