Factorio is the game equivalent of a page turner, something for me that's increasingly uncommon. The majority of the game revolves around the basic premise of taking various items and turning them into other items. It's almost a perfect example of emergent behaviour. You essentially have a handful of raw materials that you refine and combine in various ways. The gameplay loop is automating that by feeding outputs into inputs and balancing as best you can. It should be easy, but it's very difficult to get to a state that feels finished, particularly as the progression system, based around technological research, not only gives you new goals but upsets the balance of previously achieved goals.
The outcome of this emergent complexity is an endless stream of generated puzzles: finding flaws in the network and fixing them, improving efficiency, deciding whether to scrap an entire block to redo it, compartmentalising sections. It sounds on paper like a complete horror show but it's fantastic. The gameplay loop absolutely scratches the puzzle solving itch without frustration (mostly).
Graphics? I don't know, who cares. Are they a bit 8-bit? I honestly don't know. It's not gorgeous but I'd have to boot it up to see if it's ugly or not. It's not important, you just need to know what each bit does and if you arrange stuff neatly and efficiently it'll look gorgeous.
Music? I don't like the music, it terrifies me for some reason. Probably the association with the looming threat of aliens trying to destroy my plant because of the pollution I'm creating.
Replayability? Endless. It's one of those games some people will sink 1000 hours into. My goal was the game's goal of building an escape rocket, but I feel like that's less that 20% of the functionality on offer.
Story? It's a game. I'll just drop that in there because lots of developers forget about that nowadays and try to create some horrible mash-up of story and action that doesn't work. Factorio's story is minimal but you create the narrative as you play. Would I have liked more story? No.
Criticisms? I'd have liked more of a tower defence mechanism. The combat works well and serves its purpose, but I would've liked a more involved mechanism. Difficulty can be tweaked heavily, but it's 95% factory, 5% defences. I would like an option to allow strategic defence building. But, it's a minor issue.
The outcome of this emergent complexity is an endless stream of generated puzzles: finding flaws in the network and fixing them, improving efficiency, deciding whether to scrap an entire block to redo it, compartmentalising sections. It sounds on paper like a complete horror show but it's fantastic. The gameplay loop absolutely scratches the puzzle solving itch without frustration (mostly).
Graphics? I don't know, who cares. Are they a bit 8-bit? I honestly don't know. It's not gorgeous but I'd have to boot it up to see if it's ugly or not. It's not important, you just need to know what each bit does and if you arrange stuff neatly and efficiently it'll look gorgeous.
Music? I don't like the music, it terrifies me for some reason. Probably the association with the looming threat of aliens trying to destroy my plant because of the pollution I'm creating.
Replayability? Endless. It's one of those games some people will sink 1000 hours into. My goal was the game's goal of building an escape rocket, but I feel like that's less that 20% of the functionality on offer.
Story? It's a game. I'll just drop that in there because lots of developers forget about that nowadays and try to create some horrible mash-up of story and action that doesn't work. Factorio's story is minimal but you create the narrative as you play. Would I have liked more story? No.
Criticisms? I'd have liked more of a tower defence mechanism. The combat works well and serves its purpose, but I would've liked a more involved mechanism. Difficulty can be tweaked heavily, but it's 95% factory, 5% defences. I would like an option to allow strategic defence building. But, it's a minor issue.