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What is interesting about Factorio

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1–10 of 312 posts

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#4
post #3

I really want to play this game. I've put it on my wishlist 2 years ago, but I swear, I've never seen it on sale! I wonder if it's because technically it is still Early Access.

The developers have said that they're not considering doing sales.

From their FAQ [0]:

> Are you planning to participate in Steam sales or Bundles?

> No. The price we ask is what we consider a fair price for the game.

[0] https://factorio.com/faq

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#5
post #2

> It's also extremely addictive to engineers. Quite the understatement. Pretty much every engineer that I've introduced to the game has played for at least 40 hours.

Interesting. I used to play video games but now I mostly 3D print stuff and design robots for fun. I don’t think video games are a bad use of time generally, but I feel so good about doing actual engineering for fun that I’m always a little surprised with games that are supposed to be fun for engineer types. I kind of wonder why actually doing engineering for fun isn’t more popular?

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#6
As someone that stopped playing games in university, I've found it weirdly hard to get back into games many years later.

Factorio seems like the type of game I would've liked as a teenager, but now it just feels like work to me.

As do most interesting games. It seems like there's a learning curve to games that I don't want to spend the time dealing with anymore.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#9
I think the biggest hook for Factorio is that it's an _actual_ visual programming language. So much of what we do day to day ignores this (dominant!) mode of perception. It's extremely refreshing to be able to simply look at a system to reason about it.

(as an aside, I think this is also why the Zachtronics games are so effective)

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#10
post #6

As someone that stopped playing games in university, I've found it weirdly hard to get back into games many years later. Factorio seems like the type of game I would've liked as a teenager, but now it just feels like work to me. As do most interesting games. It seems like there's a learning curve to games that I don't want to spend the time dealing with anymore.

Even if you don't play, I highly recommend following the Factorio Friday blog posts. The development team is very transparent about what they are working on and will often dive into interesting problems and solutions, including failed attempts. They are both technical and approachable.
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