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from the you-are-stuck-at-home-you-may-as-well-enjoy-it dept.
After 8.5 years and countless delays for "refinement" Factorio has finally released today.
Factorio is a very successful indie game. (A few months back, it hit 2 million sales.) It is a base builder. The premise is that your spaceship crash lands on an alien planet, you are left with next to nothing and from there you build a gigantic factory so that you can build a new spaceship and get off the planet. You start off gathering basic materials and researching the basics until you rise to the level of advanced materials and spaceship construction. Your factory will continue to grow as you advance and as it grows it will create pollution. The pollution will cause the local alien life to stir and eventually attack your base; so you will need to set up defenses while advancing.
It is very addictive. Probably the most addictive thing for me is that often you need to do multiple things, and must prioritize. As your base grows, you will need to expand your power production, at the same time you need to explore and find a source of oil so that you can unlock the next level of research, at the same time, aliens are attacking the other side of the base and need to be killed... then you need to rebuild... add defenses... clear alien hives that are too close... add more ammo production... add even more power... expand your resource harvesting before the current iron patch is completely mined... and so on. and so on...
I personally have played Factorio for 1500 hours over the last 4 years... Over that time it has gone through some major changes such as the addition of Nuclear Power, Massive Network games (over 100 people have played coop in a single game,) high definition graphic overhaul, and regular performance tuning. While the 1.0 release is here, the devs have promised continued bug fixes and already annouced that 1.1 will be coming.
Factorio supports Linux, Mac, and that microsoft os.
Related Links:
Factorio Home Page
Factorio Steam Page (though you can buy directly from their home page to give the devs a few cents more.)
Submitter's Steam Review (shameless self-promotion that provides no actual value.)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dltaylor on Saturday August 15 2020, @10:45PM (1 child)
I have been away from gaming for a while. My reflexes are no longer good enough for shooters, or, alas, RTS.
I discovered, somewhere along the line between building "Hack" on VMS, "Zaxxon", "Arctic Fox", "Sim City", and "RR Tycoon" on my Amigas, through "Star Craft" and "Civilization" on PCs, that something I really enjoyed was building. Unfortunately, a Zergling rush or barbarian attack can impact your plans to build a nice base.
"Factorio" sounds like a game I need to try. There are negative consequences for some choices, and those seem reasonable, but the real goal is to build something. I had no idea this existed, and there's a native Linux version as a bonus.
As mentioned above, "Oxygen Not Included" is also in this category, although the graphics are not my style, and I don't have a Steam account.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by stretch611 on Sunday August 16 2020, @12:15AM
While steam accounts are free, I know of the reluctance some people have with them and I understand.
When buying it direct, Humble does deal with the transactions and you do get a steam key with it. (as well as being able to download direct from Factorio.com/Wube.)
You can buy factorio on GOG.com as well and it will give you access to the DRM free build by giving you a key that can be redeemed on the Factorio website. The only reason why I personally would do something like this is only to keep all my purchases in a single game store so it is easy to find if I ever lose the codes. https://www.gog.com/game/factorio [gog.com]
You mentioned RR Tycoon... There is a lot of rail networks in factorio... you should like that aspect.
If you also liked the old Roller Coaster Tycoon... There is both a open source version of the original: https://openrct2.org/ [openrct2.org] It requires the original game files, but allows the old game to play on modern hardware and on linux. (and the original game files can be bought on GOG.)
Parkitect is a modern successor to RCT2 and is also available on Linux... and DRM free on GOG.
Another builder/logisitcs game that I enjoy on linux is Rise of Industry. Like the others I did check and it is on GOG: https://www.gog.com/game/rise_of_industry [gog.com]
I do admit though that I have mixed feelings about GOG.com. DRM Free is great and that alone is worthy of a recommendation. I own a lot of really old games through their website that I have collected it the decade plus that they have been around.
However, their linux support is a little lacking. Some games that have linux support do not get a linux version on GOG. Same with some DLC... and it is really frustrating if you buy something there and can get a wanted expansion. Also game updates/patches sometimes take a long time in comparison to steam to ever show up on GOG... if they show up. But If you want to avoid steam, there is no place better than GOG for linux.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P