So, I played some Factorio, again, and with a quick check on Steam, I was hit with a surprise - I've clocked in over 5000 hours. Yes, you read that right. It seems I might have gone a bit overboard, but then again, Factorio has a unique grip on me. Imagine a tower defense game, but with the added twist of having to meticulously build and manage an entire industrial complex to sustain your defensive efforts.
Am I alone in my approach? I transform the entire game world to suit my needs. Every water body must be filled, forests are either deconstructed or set ablaze. My goal is to create an impervious, self-repairing behemoth of a factory that can fend off any threat. It's my consistent playstyle, every time.
Factorio has become more than just a game; it's an obsession that has pushed my Steam Cloud Save system to its limits. My savegames now surpass a whopping 775 megabytes. The auto save files alone, along with the regular saves, are nearly 3 gigabytes—for just one scenario. It's reaching absurd proportions. Even a single round on my expansive railroad system, without stopping, takes almost 1.5 hours.
Did I mention it's becoming absurd? Yet, despite the challenges, I find myself unable to tear away. Waves of aliens crash against my walls, meeting their demise en masse while I calmly sit inside, launching rocket after rocket. All the game goals have been achieved, and still, I cannot bring myself to stop. Factorio has become a journey beyond reason, and I embrace it with both excitement and a hint of madness.
I hopped into Factorio during the open beta phase. Pinpointing the exact date eludes me, but let's just say it predates the grand graphics overhaul and the days when you earned research points by taking down aliens. This was a time pre-Spidertron Mechs and before the introduction of the artillery system - is the undisputed queen of the battlefield. And for good measure, i pop a "war never changes" here.
Witnessing the extent to which I employ this powerful weapon in Factorio, you might find solace in the fact that I opted out of a military career in real life. The destruction I unleash is on a massive scale, with entire square kilometers dedicated solely to churning out artillery shells at a rate that, once again, borders on the absurd.
a self made uranium centrifuge
Beyond the defense aspect lies the intricate world of factory management in Factorio. Virtually everything can be crafted by your own hands (with a few exceptions that are relatively insignificant for the purpose of this discussion). While your manual craftsmanship has a certain speed, it pales in comparison to the velocity achievable through highly parallelized machines.
Factorio introduces logic circuits, even allowing you to perform complex calculations within the game engine. You dont need it to finish the game, but it can definitive help you in certain aspects. I like managing my Robot losses with that. This dynamic mirrors aspects of games like Minecraft. As you unlock new technological advancements through research, each step forward compels you to scale up the preceding operations—often by a factor of 11. Soon, you find yourself creating blueprints, duplicating entire sections of your burgeoning factory, and necessitating its expansion.
By this point, your manufacturing prowess is formidable, making you seemingly untouchable. Yet, the relentless pursuit of growth persists. You continue to duplicate not just sections but the entirety of your factory, sometimes multiple times over, propelling your operations into unprecedented realms of speed and efficiency.
Then, purely for amusement, I load up a Spidertron with an arsenal of nuclear weapons, configure it for autonomous assault, and remotely steer it towards the nearest alien hive. It's a display of sheer destructive prowess, as the mechanized arachnid marches into the heart of the enemy territory, leaving a trail of nuclear devastation in its wake. Maybe it survives... maybe not. The radius of the nuclear rockets is substantial, adding an element of uncertainty to the spectacle.
There's a meme floating around suggesting that certain games are tailor-made for those with ADHD. I won't declare it a universal law, but the evidence seems to align with my Factorio escapades.
We don't use scores in our reviews, but I strongly recommend Factorio for its intricate gameplay.