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What is interesting about Factorio

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Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#51

Post by chipperyman573 »

mcphage wrote: post #30
sdegutis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because these kinds of games always were a form of work. When you have a higher purpose in life, these types of games drain you and leave you unfulfilled and unsatisfied and like we should have spent our time in a less tedious and wearisome recreation. I can no longer play Minecraft, and haven't even been able to get into Factorio.

> these types of games drain you and leave you unfulfilled and unsatisfied and like we should have spent our time in a less tedious and wearisome recreation. I, too, have given up eating, and sleeping, and joy.

Eating, sleeping, and joy are not typically considered tedious or wearisome.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#52

Post by ecuzzillo »

billfruit wrote: post #47

I haven't played it for long, but one thing I felt with Factorio and with the Anno series is that there is no RNG. I feel it would perhaps be more fun with an RNG element. Like, the assembly lines won't create identical items, but there will be some statistical variability. Also sometimes total duds are created that will cause problems downstream. Also random plant failures and downtime. In my imagination it would be…

Angels & Bob's mods and/or Seablock might scratch this itch.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#53

Post by TylerE »

chipperyman573 wrote: post #50
TylerE wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve tried several times but it just repels me. It has the worst tutorial I’ve ever seen and all the inventory management is just super awkward with weird UI. That’s coming from someone with hundreds of hours in OpenTTD and the like

What's wrong about the tutorial? It walks you through the first 5% of the game. The remaining 95% unlock in a way that makes it obviously an improvement to something you have already. Personally I really liked it.

It’s incredible opaque.

The old tutorial was actually better. The new one they introduced is really bad. Not only does it not explain things, but some of the mechanics actually work differently in the tutorial.

This is a pretty good breakdown

https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?t=72407

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#54

Post by raxxorrax »

I bought the game on a hunch in its very early development. At some point they introduced their weakly reports on development, which were extremely interesting about the problems they were facing. Great developer and I love how successful it became. It seriously deserves all the praise.

Even in very early development, when it still looked horrible, the core elements were already a lot of fun. I am no game developer, but for everyone that wants to go that route, I would seriously recommend reading their "friday facts". And even if you are just a developer of the mundane, it is super interesting.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#55

Post by AgentME »

billfruit wrote: post #46

One annoying aspect in Factorio in the short time that I have played it was that there is a player character, who needs to move to each location before an object can be placed there. It adds a degree of tedium in building, if having requiring the player sprite to move about..

The game does introduce a few ways to deal with this: there's cars and trains for getting around fast, but also you can command construction bots from any distance if they're in an area with radar coverage. It is a bit limited, but it does give some encouragement to create controllable long-range contraptions.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#57

Post by raxxorrax »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #5
jfim wrote: 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?

I had the impression of working while playing Space Chem, a really good puzzle game with awesome music. I think the developer made another game but haven't tried that yet. In the game you can compare your results with others and in most cases you have to decide between optimizing for simplicity or speed. Seriously, if I just had a sliver of the ambition I had while playing this game for other projects...

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#58

Post by potatochup »

jaggederest wrote: post #40

I found > There's gotta be some innate machine-focused "interest in things" that this is tapping. I've never taken apart or rebuilt a machine, but this gets me anyway. fairly sad. Factorio is fun, but it's a pale shadow of the experience of making even relatively simple machines work better or differently. Even getting a 2-stroke motor that has a dirty filter running again is immensely satisfying.

Kinda. But then you don't have the right o-ring and the store is closed until Monday. And you mixed up the BSF and UNC threads on your carbs. And the cloth wiring is intermittently shorting out. Computers are nice in some ways.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#59

Post by jfim »

TylerE wrote: post #53
chipperyman573 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong about the tutorial? It walks you through the first 5% of the game. The remaining 95% unlock in a way that makes it obviously an improvement to something you have already. Personally I really liked it.

It’s incredible opaque. The old tutorial was actually better. The new one they introduced is really bad. Not only does it not explain things, but some of the mechanics actually work differently in the tutorial. This is a pretty good breakdown https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?t=72407

They've actually decided to remove the tutorial introduced in 0.17 and go back to the 0.16 one.

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-342

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#60

Post by rubenbe »

fouc wrote: 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.

Interesting that you have the same feeling.

I used to like RTS-style/city builder games and put endless hours in them (think simcity, rollercoaster tycoon, settlers, ... ).

I barely play games anymore, but now I focus more on short (sidescroller) action games. Where each level lasts only a few minutes. (super meat boy, zombie night terror, hotline miami, ...)

Maybe it's a case of instant gratification seeking. But it seems to work for me.

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