Factorio is brilliant gamification of pathological Industrialism

[DocWatts]

Factorio is a survival/management game developed by Czech studio Wube Software.

The premise of the game is that the player is stranded on an alien world that thier spaceship crash lands on, with the eventual goal of the game being to construct a spaceship to escape the planet.

The gameplay loop involves resource extraction through ever an expanding process of automization, as the player builds up Industry and develops supply chains to turn raw materials in to refined products for use in technology.

Part of the reason that this game is so damned interesting is that the player is consistently faced head on with the negative and destructive consequences of this process, yet proceeds nonetheless because thier Survival Needs are inextricably linked to a process of endless expansion; "The Factory must grow".

Not only is the player incentivized to view literally everything on the planet as a resource to be exploited, but this process also leads the player to re-enact colonial exploitation in the process.

For not only are you strip mining an entire planet, but you're doing so on an inhabited world whose denizens (a Starship Trooper-esque race of insectoids) are being harmed by your Industrial pollution. So when they begin attacking your factories, it's only natural that the player perceives this as an aggressive attack, rather than as a response to thier own aggression.

Importantly, the player doesn't set out to re-enact Imperialism; from thier point of view they've merely been optimizing supply chains and working out the logistics of resource extraction. It"s honestly a great  demonstration of the Banality of Evil.

Factorio is a fascinating game, and a good example of how gamifying something can be illuminating.

 

 

Edited July 13, 2021 by DocWatts

[Leo Gura]

Funny, I played it over the weekend.

Cool concept, but I found it too tedious.

[DocWatts]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Funny, I played it over the weekend.

Cool concept, but I found it too tedious.

It's definitely the sort of game that you get out of it what you put in to it.  

Though I get that not everyone wants to spend thier free time solving logistics puzzles and learning the intricacies of supply chains 

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, DocWatts said:

Though I get that not everyone wants to spend thier free time solving logistics puzzles and learning the intricacies of supply chains

It reminds me of the Death Strading UPS simulator.

I love strategy, city bulding, and RTS type games, but literally making conveyor belts for hours on end is too niggly for my tastes. If I enjoyed that I'd be an industrial engineer.

I am impressed by how far they took it in Factorio. Rather brilliant concept for a game. But I Iike it more as an idea than an actual game I must play.

[Extreme Z7]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I love strategy, city bulding, and RTS type games

Ya ever try Dwarf Fortress? Probably the most complex RTS game around.
It's free yet mind-boggingly complex. Took me several tutorial videos to learn how to play it.

 

[DocWatts]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It reminds me of the Death Strading UPS simulator.

I love strategy, city bulding, and RTS type games, but literally making conveyor belts for hours on end is too niggly for my tastes. If I enjoyed that I'd be an industrial engineer.

I am impressed by how far they took it in Factorio. Rather brilliant concept for a game. But I Iike it more as an idea than an actual game I must play.

Heh, probably no surprise that the people I know who absolutely love Factorio and consider it to be one of thier favorite games happen to be engineers of one type or another.

I'm not an engineer, but aside from the thematic elements I referred to I also appreciate it as a sort of non-linear puzzle game 

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Extreme Z7 said:

Ya ever try Dwarf Fortress? Probably the most complex RTS game around.
It's free yet mind-boggingly complex. Took me several tutorial videos to learn how to play it.

Too primitive and nerdy for my tastes.

1 hour ago, DocWatts said:

Heh, probably no surprise that the people I know who absolutely love Factorio and consider it to be one of thier favorite games happen to be engineers of one type or another.

Of course. It's a game for engineers.

[Eren Eeager]

@Leo Gura Try frostpunk, you will like it.

[Extreme Z7]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Too primitive and nerdy for my tastes.

Haha lol. I guess that's something for me to reflect on.

I have been getting more into board games lately so I guess I've gotten even more primitive and nerdy.