Factorio. The factory must grow.
this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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~~How~~ What do you call these games
I call them management sims, but I'm sure there are other names for the genre, too.
Rimworld is one of my favorites.
Mindustry has been getting a lot of praise. I hope to check it out soon.
Cities: Skylines is popular, and Cities: Skylines II is due soon.
Satisfactory is good (although the Steam version used Epic Games telemetry, which has been called out for being rather invasive, last time I looked).
I usually call them management games. Looking at the Steam tags for Factorio and RimWorld, they both have "Management" and Factorio additionally has "Resource Management". But I think "Management" is your best bet.
I think RTS games don't usually fall under management and instead are just called RTS.
In terms of my favourite ones, I love FTL: Faster Than Light. I'm picking it up again at the moment actually. I also like RinWorld, Oxygen Not Included, and Dungeon of the Endless.
I don't know if I would call FTL a process optimization game. One thing I feel like it's missing is feedback if your process is being optimized or if you just got lucky. With Rimworld, Roller Coaster Tycoon, and Factorio all include metrics that allow you to judge if you've made your process better but because of FTLs randomness, it's hard to determine if you played better or just had better rolls. That said I love FTL and it's an amazing game.
I've played a good bit of FTL and never felt like I knew what I was doing.
Absolutely how I felt. It's heavy on the randomness and I've never beat it despite doing very well on some runs. I think the important thing about FTL is that it's about the journey. The ending is always depressing.
FTL is so insanely good!
Oxygen Not Included
2nd vote for ONI. Many hundred hours in it.
Another +1 for ONI. Like running an ant farm of suicidal clones
Links so people can view from their own instance
Those still direct to the same URL for me. Auto-conversion of ! references seems sub-optimal that way.
What works is linking manually to /c/automation_games (propably only from lemmy, as I understand kbin has different conventions :( ): !automation_games@feddit.de, written like [!automation_games@feddit.de](/c/automation_games)
They're called management sims, or in the case of Factorio a factory builder.
Rimworld is a colony management sim... check out Dwarf Fortress or Oxygen Not Included for similar games
Rollercoaster Tycoon is a theme park management sim, the obvious suggestions are Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo but also check out City Skylines.
Factorio is a factory builder, I would recommend Satisfactory or Dyson Sphere Program, there's a few handfuls of those types of games. If you want to get a little wild look into Minecraft (Java edition) w/ mods - most easily something like the FTB Infinity Evolved or one of the new Direwolf packs, it's arguably where the factory building craze started.
Awesome suggestions, thank you.
If your interested in the minecraft Mods, Skyfactory 3 or 4 are both good for this. There is a bit of startup before you get to all the automation though.
I need to try to get back into ONI. It should be something I would really enjoy. But I got hung up on some details.
Actually, I know it's a defect in my mindset in approaching that game. I shouldn't expect certain things like conservation of mass and energy... I also took a while to realize that solubility and diffusion just don't exist in the game. I don't want to care so much about this but I struggle.
I loved Tekkit/FTB back in the day! Lots of good times setting up factories and controlling swarms of turtles.
To be honest, I've never been able to get over the hump in ONI. I play for hours, have a blast but eventually things start falling apart and I'm not usually able to recover. That being said, I know there's been some updates since last I played so I may go back to it soon.
Back in 2011 or so I got really into Minecraft mods. I think it was literally just Buildcraft and Industrialcraft. It involved many steps, putting folders inside the Minecraft JAR file, deleting meta INF files, etc. I stuck with it for a few years during which the scene exploded. I actually paid to host a website for my friend's only server that just included links to the specifics mod versions and step by step instructions how to install them. It was around the same time FTB modpacks came out that I fell off, I played one or two SP worlds with FTB Infinity Evolved and had a lot of fun but Factorio and eventually Satisfactory scratched that same itch.
Just started timberborn and it seems to be in this vain. It's a beaver city builder and you have to manage the river with dams to survive droughts, along with the typical food, water and energy resource management.
Automation, procedural, visual programming. Or just world building game.
One example: https://store.steampowered.com/app/92800/SpaceChem/
Pretty much any game from that developer is procedural/automation related.
Ha, was just about to come recommend Zachtronics games. They're more, uh, programm-y than the others being mentioned, but they definitely do center around process management
Some genre names would be: Colony Sim, Base Builder or City Builder.
Another great one is Dwarf Fortress, you should give it a try if you haven't already. It probably has the most in depth simulation of any game there is.
Cool, thank you so much! DF is on my list but the graphics … 😅
https://store.steampowered.com/app/975370/Dwarf_Fortress/
In case you aren't aware, the devs released a version with proper graphics now.
Lord, what have you done
If you're like me, experience with Rimworld + the new graphics will be what finally pulls you in. It's really great.
It added actual graphics somewhat recently, you don't need to stare at ascii anymore
Satisfactory
The GOAT of factory games, and not just because it's from the same studio that made Goat Simulator, or that you can purchase a boom box in game and make it play Goat Music.
Satisfactory hits my perfect balance of planning/optimization and 3D building and aesthetics. And it's still getting better!
Dwarf Fortress for sure.
Settlers 2 (and the faithful remake Settlers 2: 10th Anniversary) is pretty old but is still one of my favorite economy building games
You might be interested in the game Majesty. In that game you have no direct control over any units. You simply set overall objectives. And the units themselves determine when they do something. It's even more hands-off than the other automation games.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majesty:_The_Fantasy_Kingdom_Sim
Wow haven't heard about that game in quite some time. Awesome game but can be frustrating as well when heroes don't do what you want them to.
Edit Oh wow didn't know there is a sequel to the original :) is it good?
The hero is not doing what you want is exactly the point! You just provided incentives you don't have direct control. So it's definitely more hands-off gaming.
Majesty 2 is pretty good. Still not up to modern user interface standards but it's got good gameplay still
I remember giving out bounties and the heroes sometimes ignoring them :D
Thanks for the evaluation gonna check it out :)
There is the Anno series of games, which are technically RTS games but if I'm honest I find them the most fun when I go out of my way to avoid combat/micromanagement. I've only played 1404, 2070, and 2205, 2070 being the best in my opinion, but it has a bad history with DRM so I'd suggest 1404 (known as "Dawn of Discovery" in the US because us americans are afraid of numbers apparently).
Edit: looking at the steam page it looks like they decided to take 1404 down and made a new page where the game is (mostly) unchanged besides requiring you to jump through all the BS hoops that 2070 did, so I'd say if you're gonna spend money get 1404 on GOG, or if you are willing to do unspeakable things go with 2070.
Sounds great, thanks!
I really love Anno for this, 1800 is the only one I have played and I think it's an amazing game. The base game on its own has tons of content already but the dlc's add whole new regions and lots of supply chians to the game. It's a bit of a crossover between a city builder and a supply chain simulator, where the majority of the game is based on providing the needs for your residents. It's on sale very often, including the dlc's.
If you were to get it, I recommend getting the dlc's, maybe after a playthrough of the base game. If you wanna know what dlc's to get, you can check out these videos:
I would consider them a few different genres, but they are easily my favourite types of games these days. I cateogrize them in my steam list as below.
-Colony Builders: Games about building well, a colony, often from little to nothing. Often lots of You vs Environment friction, with the natural world. Tends to have a bit more focus on the individuals that comprise the colony. Examples: Rimworld (my favourite game of all time), Dwarf Fortress, Oxygen Not Included, Stranded Alien Dawn, Space Haven.
-City Builders: A bit broader in scope than a colony builder, working more on the macro level. Friction is often economic, sometimes adjusted with the natural world. Cities Skylines is kind of the prime exampe of this, but also games like Timberborn or Anno.
-Automation: Games about building a factory that...builds things automatically. Challenge tends to be logistical complexity but some games do feature combat as well. Factorio, Dyson Sphere Program (my personal favourite), Satisfactory, and Captain of Industry are the Four Horsemen of this genre to me. Techtonica is very early still but seems to have some promise as well.
For many of these games, there is a whole world of content to explore if you are interested in mods. Rimworld players regularly run hundreds of mods, my current game has about 350. Factorio has extensive overhaul mods that can take literally thousands of hours to finish in some cases (Py's). Satisfactory has a surprisingly robust mod scene for an early access game too.
I see a pattern of games mentioned here! What do you call games like theme hospital? I’d love to skim a few recommendations for these kind of games that let you hire different employees to run parts of your business.
I probably would group those into the Manamement/Tycoon genre. More economic than colony builders, but smaller scale than city builders.
The Two Point games are pretty good versions of those, if you light the more light-hearted atmosphere.
Your suggestions are great, thank you! What’s still missing is a game that let’s you hire people with different skills and watch them do their stuff (Theme Hospital, maybe? There have to be better examples nowadays!)
A close example could be Game Dev Tycoon I played for a while. But unfortunately you really had to micromanage every step.
Prison Architect.
Space Haven, though it's EA.
I'm trying to make a game in this genre though I describe it as a base-building/simulation/survival game, other favourites include Oxygen Not Included, Timberborn, Factorio and Satisfactory.
Back in the day, Maxis had an entire brand of "Sim" games that were exactly this. Sim Farm, Sim Earth, Sim Ant, and, most notably, Sim City. I have no idea how many titles there were, but there were a lot of them.
Then EA ate them.
You could try ProsperousUniverse. It’s more of a game you play while you play others, but definitely a “wait, I spent 18 hours on a spreadsheet?” type of game.