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How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

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Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#31

Post by aphantastic »

Xeronate wrote: post #7

The article mentions one of the main appeals of factorio is you get to think like a programmer without bosses/overhead from actual work but it’s always been hard to get into games for that reason because I could just work on a side project with the same result. I really don’t understand the appeal.

Mindusry scratches the same itch, but in perhaps a slightly more appealing way for me at least. Rather than the entire game being dedicated to creating one massive monolith dedicated to the one goal of rocket building or whatever, there are many different levels each where you’re just playing classic tower defense and using the layout of the map to your advantage to extract resources and kill bad guys. It’s casual and FOSS.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#32

Post by ekidd »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #8

Is there a better graphics version of factorio? And no I don't mean Satisfactory or Dyson Sphere Program though those are good games in their own rights, I mean something with the same level of depth and camera as factorio.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "better graphics"? They're upgraded their graphics several times over the years. I'm playing on a 4K monitor and they're using most of those pixels. I can see a small amount of interpolation at full zoom at 4K.

If you zoom in, the graphics are high-res 2D sprites, rendered from 3D models. And the level of detail can be ridiculous. From this week's Factorio 2.0 update (and Space Age add-on), here's an example of the zoomed-in detail: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-396 See the foundry animations? Those videos are actually slightly more blurred than the in-game version. And the sound effects are synced to specific animation frames.

So the world of Factorio is oftentimes brown and grim and covered in grime, but that's a conscious artistic choice. (Not all of the new planets are brown. Gleba is green and irridescent and frankly creepy.) Similarly, Factorio's 2D nature has allowed the developers to focus on gameplay and quality-of-life more than many newer games in the genre. If you want to build big, intricate factories with complex train networks, for example, Factorio really shines.

If anyone would like a game with 3D graphics, or a different graphics style, try:

- Satisfactory: The 3D world is gorgeous, and Satisfactory shines at "walk around inside your factory and tinker with it." Gameplay-wise, it has only recently gained blueprinting tools that allow working at a medium level of abstraction.

- Shapez 2.0: This is pretty and colorful and full of great little puzzles. It occupies a different part of the game-design space and is just a joy to play.

(Dyson Sphere Project and Captain of Industry also have great gameplay, but I don't know if their graphics are likely to grab people who find Factorio graphically underwhelming.)

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#33

Post by cole-k »

OrigamiPastrami wrote: post #10
Xeronate wrote: post #7

The article mentions one of the main appeals of factorio is you get to think like a programmer without bosses/overhead from actual work but it’s always been hard to get into games for that reason because I could just work on a side project with the same result. I really don’t understand the appeal.

I remember when Guitar Hero came out I didn't understand why anybody would play that instead of just buying a guitar. The point is the videogame itself is designed to be fun and remove plenty of other elements from the real life equivalent that focuses more on enjoyment and less on grinding it out. If you're thinking about "what have I accomplished?" instead of "I'm having so much fun!" then it might not be for you.…

Your comparison hits home for me. I have been playing guitar on-and-off for over a decade (OK, maybe more like trying to play guitar) and I still really enjoy Guitar Hero.

It's instant gratification: I don't have as much fun practicing at .75x speed with a metronome to learn the hard part of a piece. Instead a video game tells me how great I am at "guitar" by being able to push buttons and strum on the beat, not to mention that I hear the sounds of my favorite songs come out when I do it.

For a similar reason, I like Rocksmith (guitar hero but with a real guitar), but the gratification is not quite so instant. They gamify the practicing part but I still need to do it, otherwise the part I'm playing actually sounds bad. And sight-reading is so much harder when there are more than 5 buttons.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#34

Post by indigoabstract »

runeblaze wrote: post #11
Xeronate wrote: post #7

The article mentions one of the main appeals of factorio is you get to think like a programmer without bosses/overhead from actual work but it’s always been hard to get into games for that reason because I could just work on a side project with the same result. I really don’t understand the appeal.

Same here. Also Factorio AFAIK has no good copilot. Sadly the best LLMs are not fine-tuned on Factorio so my productivity takes a massive hit when moving from side projects to Factorio.

Lol. My parser failed at this step, so I had to look it up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#35

Post by satvikpendem »

I know lots of people who play Factorio but for me, I guess it just feels too much like work? Whenever I play it, I get the distinct feeling that I could instead do the same thing but productively instead, such as by contributing to my OSS projects (sometimes, maybe even for profit instead). I never got into these types of programmatic games for precisely this reason but I'd like to understand other perspectives on this.

The games I play instead are wholly unrelated to my work life, such as FPS or RPG ones, where there is a clear distinction between what I can do and what I want to do.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#36

Post by MarkMarine »

Xeronate wrote: post #7

The article mentions one of the main appeals of factorio is you get to think like a programmer without bosses/overhead from actual work but it’s always been hard to get into games for that reason because I could just work on a side project with the same result. I really don’t understand the appeal.

The stakes (there are none except ones you set for yourself)

The timeline (quick returns, but a long scale of challenges you can build up to. Lots of side projects out there with 0 users.)

You can play with friends

You can also pay 1/4 attention until you need to design something complex in the game. I find it fun, I can turn my brain off for a bit but then re/engage for the fun complex stuff.

I stopped playing as much myself because I wanted to either work on professional development (side projects, learning more) or actually make things with my hands (woodworking, chair making, fixing an old truck) that were real breaks from software engineering, and easier to share with my kids.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#37

Post by AtlasBarfed »

satvikpendem wrote: post #35

I know lots of people who play Factorio but for me, I guess it just feels too much like work? Whenever I play it, I get the distinct feeling that I could instead do the same thing but productively instead, such as by contributing to my OSS projects (sometimes, maybe even for profit instead). I never got into these types of programmatic games for precisely this reason but I'd like to understand other perspectives on t…

Fps: the US military thanks you for training for infantry in your spare time.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#38

Post by Taek »

satvikpendem wrote: post #35

I know lots of people who play Factorio but for me, I guess it just feels too much like work? Whenever I play it, I get the distinct feeling that I could instead do the same thing but productively instead, such as by contributing to my OSS projects (sometimes, maybe even for profit instead). I never got into these types of programmatic games for precisely this reason but I'd like to understand other perspectives on t…

Its just fun.

"Okay wth, today we're going to make the entire base solar powered"

When making software that's supposed to be used, you can't mess around that much. At the end of the day, someone has to use it and if its weird it'll be bad.

But in Factorio? Nobody is using it so sure, make it bizzare. Change the rules, let yourself go. Don't test the design just send it.

Bored? Too challenging? Don't bother finishing the design do something else.

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#39

Post by yieldcrv »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #23
yieldcrv wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same about another pretty chill game, Dave the Diver. It has a great feedback loop, at the beginning Once I get successful in it, I'm like "but I should be making money in the real world, not this world" as I do have side projects. the game does turn into a slog, if you approach it that way

Dave the Diver just turns into a slog is all. It's fantastic at the start when everything is novel, and all the systems hold promise. But the systems themselves turn out to not have good gameplay loops, so right around the underwater village it starts to kinda suck, which ironically is right around when all the systems are mature enough that to play well you have a giant list of "todo" items across a variety of syste…

just looked up Against the Storm, looks like the board game Agricola, where the goal is to build and farm and survive the winter. I always found Agricola ironic, in that is masquarades as a PvP game, where your survival outcome is then compared to the other players, but its very stressful as there are not enough resources on the board for your family.

so thats what made it too much like real life for me, because you're like struggling but then pretending like you are flexing (look at the size of my house! my farm!), but really everyone barely made it at all

maybe Against the Storm as a single player journey makes more sense

Re: How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me

#40

Post by highwind »

satvikpendem wrote: post #35

I know lots of people who play Factorio but for me, I guess it just feels too much like work? Whenever I play it, I get the distinct feeling that I could instead do the same thing but productively instead, such as by contributing to my OSS projects (sometimes, maybe even for profit instead). I never got into these types of programmatic games for precisely this reason but I'd like to understand other perspectives on t…

Just like any other video games, I like these type of management games because it's "work" without real-life consequences.

I can play the min-max game without any unknowns that comes from real life management. Or I can destroy everything and mess everything up too.

It's my escapism.

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