Accents
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Factorio’s addictive and evolving nature has made it a popular indie game on Steam as players gradually automate tedious processes and build efficient factories.
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Similar factory management and automation games like Automachef, Word Factori, Kubifaktarium, Shapez, Autonauts, Hydroneer, Infinifactory, Satisfactory, Dyson Sphere Program and Mindustry offer unique experiences with different art styles.
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These games provide players with opportunities to design, build, and automate various systems, whether it’s building automated kitchens, optimizing word chains, managing colonies, creating complex shapes, mining resources, assembling products, or building of massive intergalactic factories.
Since its initial release in 2016. Factorio has become one of the most popular indie games on Steam, despite its old graphics and dull colors. This is probably due to the addictive and evolving nature of the game, as players gradually automate tedious game processes, slowly building an efficient factory that practically runs on its own.
Because of FactorioThe popularity of, plenty of “factory management” and automation games followed suit, with many offering unique experiences with different art styles.
10 A car
This resource management puzzle game tasks players with designing and building automated kitchens by building and programming various machines to construct the perfect production line for their restaurant.
A car features a campaign of puzzling scenarios and a “contracts” mode, as well as a sandbox mode that allows players to freely experiment with game mechanics. While A car may lack the depth and longevity of Factorioit’s certainly a worthwhile experience for those looking for more variation on automated gameplay.
9 Word Factors
This unique word building game has a clean and simple art style and easy-to-learn gameplay that challenges the player to build chains of colorful factories that manipulate the letter “i” into more complex letters.
Although Word Factors is more of a puzzle game than a factory management game, it encourages players to optimize their factory chains to get higher scores. The game is relatively short, but includes additional objectives such as challenge levels and hidden word art to keep players engaged.
8 Kubifaktorium
This voxel-based colony simulation management game has players build and manage a colony by managing resources and production lines built by complex machines, allowing for a unique take on the rich colony simulation genre.
Kubifaktorium features a variety of transportation systems including trains, conveyor belts, and zeppelins that allow the player to move resources back and forth around their colony. Additionally, the game allows players to automate their colony’s production through automated farms, smelters, and crushers that use conveyor belts.
7 Chapez
This abstract automation game features a minimalistic aesthetic and gameplay that features an endlessly expanding map on which players must automate the production of increasingly complex shapes through the use of the game’s various machines.
Chapez is unique with its relaxing atmosphere and simplistic aesthetics that are easy on the eyes and clear to read, making the puzzle-like gameplay easy to experiment with. Chapez it may not be so much a sandbox as Factorionor does it feature combat or tech trees, but it’s a fun and clever automation game that’s easy to sink many hours into.
6 Autonaut
This highly unique automation game stands out for its colony-building gameplay, which tasks players with automating various productions by building robots and teaching them how to do their jobs through an educational visual programming language similar to Scratch.
Autonaut gives players plenty of things to do and teach their robot workers. Throughout the game, players will work to create a fully automated and peaceful colony by carefully tinkering and upgrading their robotic workforce. Seeing an entire colony run by automated workers programmed by the player is a uniquely satisfying experience.
5 Hydroneer
This base-building sandbox game has an emphasis on mining, which tasks the player with mining various resources and selling them for profit by developing a mining base with a modular building system and hydro-powered machinery.
Players will need to design an efficient mining operation by creating various networks of pipes and controlling water pressure to power their machines. Players will spend a lot of time mining through the game’s voxel-based terrain, searching for ore veins and transporting their goods across the map.
4 Infinity
This sci-fi sandbox puzzle game tasks players with assembling products for their alien overlords by building factories in a variety of 3D environments from a first-person perspective.
Infinity features a story campaign that takes the player through over fifty puzzles, as well as end-of-level histograms that allow players to see how efficient their factories are and compare them to others. Additionally, the game features a sandbox mode that allows players to experiment with the game’s “block engine,” as well as extensive Steam Workshop support that allows players to build and share their puzzles.
3 Satisfactory
Satisfactory
- platform(s)
- desktop computer
- Released
- March 19, 2019
- Developer(s)
- Coffee Stain Studios
- genre(s)
- Simulation, Sandbox
This open-world sci-fi game places players on an exotic alien planet and tasks them with building and managing multi-story factories heavily dependent on stacks of carefully placed conveyor belts.
Although Satisfactory is heavily focused on its factory management mechanics, the game also features light exploration and combat mechanics that allow players to explore the alien planet and battle the local fauna. Satisfactory it also allows players to further automate their production by automating vehicles such as trucks and trains to transport their goods around the planet. Additionally, the game features online co-op that allows players to build factories and explore the planet together.
2 Dyson Sphere Program
Dyson Sphere Program
- platform(s)
- desktop computer
- Released
- January 21, 2021
- Developer(s)
- Studio Youthcat
- genre(s)
- Simulation
This space simulation game tasks players with building efficient factories on an intergalactic scale, mining multiple planets by building massive automated factories, and creating a thriving industrial empire.
Dyson Sphere Program takes place in a procedurally generated universe with multiple types of planets, stars and resources. Players will need to design and build efficient production lines as well as manage their transport teams to collect and move resources to and from different planets. The Dyson Sphere program the scope is huge, but it makes for a slow-burn experience that takes a bit longer to get into compared to other games.
1 Mindustry
This unique tower defense factory management game has players building automated supply chains to feed their towers with ammunition and defend their base against waves of relentless enemies.
Mindustry also has RTS elements, allowing players to construct mechanized units to help defend their base and send them out to conquer territory to expand it. Players will need to use “production blocks” and conveyor belts to construct efficient production lines and keep their defenses active. Furthermore, Mindustry features a single-player campaign as well as online co-op and team-based PvP.