We're Building a City, Boys!

I love simulation games. There's something peaceful, and enjoyable, about being able to sit down and just focus on managing resources and building out the layout of your dreams. Like most people I was sucked into SimCity, the quintessential sim game, and that alone spurred on my desire to play others. Not every sim game was great (SimAnt was weird, SimMall boring, but there was always some simulation adventure I could sink my teeth into when I wanted to get lost for a few weeks.

I first caught wind of Factorio, a factory building game, when I saw a run of it in GDQ one season. I liked the management aspects of it, gathering resources to build the next bit, getting the next upgrade, looking for how to process the next tech tree. It sounds boring to some, but this is just an enjoyable way to pass the time for me, so when I finally had free time I picked up the game. Needless to say I no longer have free time; Factorio is my life.

The basics of the game are much like I described above: you're a spaceman who has crash landed on a planet. Your goal is simple: build the tech you need to get yourself back off the planet. Gather resources, smelt metals, process that metal into refined resources, and keep upgrading as you build more and more advanced tech. Along the way you'll have to start researching tech upgrades, pumping resources into science so you can then get better resources. On and on the cycle goes until you've built a rocket ship and launched back into space. Easy peasy.

Or, it would be, if it weren't for the aliens on the planet. There are giant bugs on the planet, creatures that come from insect hives, drawn to the pollution your various machines spit out. When they attack they'll chew through your tech, and you, unless you manage to fight them off. Researching military upgrades is the only way to survive as the bugs get bigger and angrier as you pump more and more pollution into the atmosphere. You've gotta be smart, and stay on alert, because the bugs could come for you at any moment.

I'll be honest, fighting the aliens is where the game loses me. I don't mean I get bored with it; literally I can't keep up and the game loses me. I tried playing through the tutorial and by the third "stage" of that set of missions the bugs were coming too fast for me to keep up. I couldn't think my way through building a base and keep up with the waves of bugs and I died over and over again. That tutorial is still sitting there, unfinished, because I just didn't bother trying again by my tenth horrible death.

But here's the nice thing about Factorio: if you're like me and can't keep up with the action, you don't have to. There's a handy options menu when you create a new world to explore, and one of the things you can turn off are the alien hives. No alien hives, no aliens to fight. That makes for a much more peaceful game, one where you can set your own pace and just enjoy building out your factory on an alien world. It's cozy, a way to just think through the simulation on your own terms.

Some would argue that, by turning off the aliens, I've somehow "played the game wrong." To that I say, "if aliens are a required part of playing the game right, then the option to turn them off shouldn't be there." I could stress out as I play my game, or I could find a way to make the experience enjoyable. Considering I paid for the game I should be able to enjoy it my way, so I will. That means no aliens, at least for now, and a whole planet to pollute as I see fit. Done and done.

Without the aliens the game feels much more like SimCity or RollerCoaster Tycoon. It becomes about resource management, keeping an eye on what you're doing to keep the flow of your base constant. Run out of iron? Gotta go figure out how to get more into your flow. Screw up a build out? Gotta tear it down and start over, finding a different way to set everything up. I've already torn down and rebuilt my base twice because I've learned more about efficient management and I had to reorganize everything. It was for me, and I enjoyed it.

Frankly, I think this is the perfect way to play your first time through the game. Learn about efficient organization, figure out the best ways to gather resources and organize everything. Take your time to learn the ins and outs this first round through and then, if you want to add back in some (or lots) of aliens down the road, you can. There's nothing stopping you from making another game and trying different things out each time around. This is absolutely a game you can explore your way, over and over again.

This is where I have my fun, and it's damned enjoyable. I like this better, this time through, playing a cozy game of Factorio. I'm sure one day I;ll try a planet out with a few hives just so I can see if I've gotten good enough to manage resources and put it all together. Maybe one day. That day isn't today but, a few months from now it could be. Or not. Again, I don't ever have to play it any way I don't want to because the game never forces anything down my throat. It's brilliant.

As one final note: that run I saw in GDQ: the speed-runner had the aliens turned off. He wanted to finish a rocket build out as fast as possible and aliens would have gotten in the way. If the speed-runners do it, why not the rest of us? Factorio as a cozy game? Sounds like perfection.