uFactory

game is fun, not so easy. Some bugs with needed ingredients in the back to schoool one. do not pay more than 10 for this. a new kind of game is in developpement but i cant understand what they want us to do...

I really want to like this game, because it seems like a more focused version of Factorio. Unfortunately, this game is extremely clunky to play. It needs massive QoL improvements to just about every facet of play.

More like a puzzle game than an actual Factory game, it is just themed with it. It is as simple as that.

There is set scenarios with specific objectives that you must fulfill, you have startup money and loans, restricted buyable ressources to transform, and a small area to path and lay out to get the objective done, puzzle game. There is nothing more, you don't get to personnalize anything more than the colors of your machines and their disposition. And even then, it is really limited, because it will affect your playability and performance 100%, and only that matter to do a good score, wich is the point of the game, getting a good grade like in old fashion arcade games.

Either you get it solved and know how to have a perfect rendering by mathing it out, or you have a painfull time trying to figure out things one after another, try, restart, try and restart again, and again, until you get it, as there is no save. This feel like homework, but with the fun of being proud to show it to someone else taken away, since you solo play. If I should compare the feeling that gets to me while playing this, Bejewel do a similar job in such a way I can't help but compare, and in the time, it came out of cereal boxes.

And the playability is frustratingly limited, there is absolutly no place for creativity, sandboxers stay away. This is nothing like other Factory games you've played so far, it is more basic, just like somebody took a flash game and made it modern using a trend to catchup the hype train, nothing new you would miss, in fact there is still flash games better than this out there for free, just go Kongregate. Disappointing, as this game bring nothing new on the table, feel obselete to the genre, and clunkily deliver what is already better done elsewhere.

I want to like this game, I really do because it's right up my alley. I play games like Prison Architect, Factorio, Opus Magnum, Factory Town, Little Big Workshop, Production Line and many many other. My frustration stems from the initial layout to obtain the objectives. Its hard to judge output of a machine so I lack the proper information to correctly plan the layout. I also got completely stumped on the pencil factory because its unclear what machinery I need to perform the necessary actions. Maybe if there were a strip down the side indicating the production order and when i satisfied that it would be more helpful than trying to refer to the hand written manual that only generally indicates the step. I know this is early access and I will give this another try after the next update.

Update: Gave it another shot. Tried to make the N95 masks. Tried to use the hand drawn manual. Totally stumped how to make nose pads. You show nose pads and I see the rolls of nose clips. Looked at all the machinery attempting to determine how to turn nose clips on a roll to nose pads. Gave up and played something else. This game has potential, but you need to work on a better way to indicate what I need to do in the production process. Figuring things out is fun, but this is frustration. Maybe I'm just an idiot...

I played the game for about three hours so far and its a game I am finding fun, I have managed to go through the tutorial and am on the first mission. The game offers a simplified industrial/production process decision making simulation. The game decision making is all based on production output and doesn't take quality issues into consideration or machine reliability. However as the process engineer you can have your process run a mix of series (by using Just in time ) or parallel to improve throughput on a slow process. Its nice to see that conveys can have mixes of products, be made to go in lines and accumulate or simply be made to loop and accumulate like a buffer. The tutorial demonstrates the ability of the game to deal with liquids as well as products. I imagine that gases could be done as liquids as well.

Anybody interested in production will find this simplification become very sophisticated very quickly, which its very appeal and is a great introduction to the world of industrial/process/production engineering, which later you must build models of machines and process so that you can help make multi-million dollar purchasing decision for companies. The game is flexible enough the creators could make scenarios like a supermarket, warehouse, people queuing in a bank say. They could also add people in the place of robots.

I feel as an early release it has a lot to offer and see it evolving over time and may become a hit.

This game is exactly what I came for - detailed, complicated production focused on a logistical layout. Great gameplay, nice difficulty curve. Process so realistic you also learn how it's made!

It's an alpha, so some aspects feel like they could use tweaking. Early on the products sell for so little that you barely turn a profit. I keep fussing with exhaust gas and can't seem to make it work reliably. So far this game does not feel as "expansive" as its competition -- the campaign gameplay is a series of independent levels instead of a seamless evolution.

I don't usually do reviews, but for this I have to as the developer replied quickly to my question and sounds very helpful. While it is still in development, it does satisfy the "factory building" itch that I need scratched every so often ;-). At first I thought it was awkward that the instructions on how to build an object was not detailed exactly - but after I changed my starting out to first place down all available components and see what they take and produce (which are spelled out fairly accurately), it was simple to setup the manufacturing chains. kudos to the developer for being responsive and for taking another approach to the rather well use factory building genre.

Some people refrain from doing reviews on early access games. But in this case, I feel that one of the game's core mechanics prevents the game from appealing to it's core demographic.

This game is in the vein of Zacktronic's factory games Chemlab, InfiniFactory, and Opus-Magnum, however with a more realistic set of inputs and outputs. Wood and paint come in to the factory, painted wood blocks come out. Output produces money, machinery costs money.

Unlike many factory games, you don't set up your factory, do some test runs, see how it works, tweak your machine, reset the inputs and run again. In fact, you can't. Starting your run over is only possible by starting your machine over... from a blank factory floor. Is the point to try to lay down everything in advance? You can get close, but you can't even chose filters for robotic arms in advance. You need to run your machine until that input shows up to the arm.

This isn't what I've come to expect from factory sims and enjoy about these kinds of games... This has been pointed out on some of the feedback threads on Steam, but the developer's reply seems to be "That would break the game balance" Which tells me that the game the developer intends to make isn't necessarily the game factory sim fans want to play.

The game plays a tad more like Factorio. Factorio is another fantastic game, but it is an open ended production/supply chain/logistics kind of simulation (and more) with practically infinite building space. It is not a "your inputs are x, you must build y z's, build your factory" kind of game. And the "you're in the middle of a live running system, do what you can" works for Factorio, but not for uFactory.

Pros: Good Graphics. Lots of promise. Love the hand-written manual/tips notebook.
Cons: What I pointed out above, and less than optimal controls for moving, rotating, laying out factory machinery.

Clearly there are a lot of positive reviews for this game, so maybe *I* am the one not understanding the target demographic.

An interesting puzzle game. I am a terrible gamer and tend to give up when I can't figure things out, but this game has me hooked. Fairly easy to pick up, hard to master (for me any way). I think this game as a lot of potential and I look forward to seeing what they add over the next few months.

I believe someone already said somewhere that uFactory feels like what we would get after Factory and BigPharma had a baby. As much as I enjoyed both of those games, uFactory feels like it hits the sweet spot for me in many ways. With the limited space and funds, maximising every level is super satisfying and with the products of your factory being so different every time, it feels fresh and it doesn't get boring at all (awesome way to prevent having to do the same thing at the start over and over again).

Sure, it has some bugs and issues (e.g. in a huge factory, the arms sometimes struggle to pick up fast moving objects on maximum speed) but to be honest, it adds to the fun. Working around some of the things that are only there because it's Early Access adds to the fun for me (had the same fun in early stages of Space Engineers and Factory Town - quality of life improvements are great but sometimes they reduce the challenge too much).

About the learning curve.. If you played any other factory game, you will feel at home here and with every level you will come up with new ways to optimise your production lines even more which gives the game a lot of replayability value just for the sake of getting that S+++ rating (completing the main objectives is fairly straightforward). Leaderboards would be great, I'm sure they're coming at some point.

By far, the best aspect for me is figuring out how to max the level. Sure, it's sometimes more difficult to figure out the exact times of production (like in Big Pharma you have cycles, it's a bit more fluid here) but planning everything ahead on a piece of paper based on the instructions in the sketch book is extremely fun. When you combine it with the space limitations, the money and time available, it becomes an awesome multi layer puzzle and when it comes together, it's just so satisfying to see everything in motion!

So far I actually found the first level to be the hardest - played it through several times with different optimisation strategies, spending every penny as it comes in, selling raw materials to get some additional cash, buying single machines, making them work solo on all steps and then arranging them in a series as soon as I had enough money... still can't get the S+++ rating... Licence plates is a completely different beast.. space.. so much space... So many hours.. but you can make it SO beautiful!! :D

I have enjoyed immensely every single of the 100 hours I've sank into this game and I'm looking forward to future updates and new products! Highly recommended! Keep up the good work!

This is a tough review to write because I'm not sure what I want to say. It's positive, though.
This game is early, but runs well, I haven't run into any bugs. There are a few QoL improvements that I'd like to see (copy/paste, multi-block select), but I believe these are all planned features.
The game looks good.

The solutions are open-ended, which can feel a bit overwhelming at first. There's multiple ways the machines/arms/conveyors can be configured to reach the goal, with efficiency being the ultimate objective.

If you like logistics puzzles, and enjoy open-ended flexibility in your designs, then you would probably like this game. For $10, it's a great deal. The difficulty does ramp up quickly. After the first level, you're all like, "ok, I got this" - and then the second level is way more complex. The tutorial does a good job of showing the basics, though some people may need/want some more hand holding.

I guess, for $10, if you're a fan of zach-likes then go for it. If you're expecting a giant Factorio sandbox, then this is not there yet.

This game should really be perfect for me. I think I have played almost everything similar you can find on Steam.

uFactory feels like a cross between the interesting parts of Factorio, and Production Line (a recent vehicle assembly game that I don't think was very popular). In fact it borrows extremely heavily from Production Line (UI elements, mechanics, etc). I've sunk days into Factorio and many hours into Production Line, but there's something about uFactory that somehow immediately has me ejecting.

On the surface it seems like a fantastic idea to concentrate on the individual puzzles of optimization that crop up in factory games, but in Factorio and Production Line the thing is you don't have to do it. Instead, in factory games, citybuilders, and a lot of management games, there is a rhythm. You build, then you let everything hum along for a while, making sure it's good, being able to momentarily be satisfied with your work, and then eventually you decide "alright, next let's do this." And that next thing might be a tricky optimization, or it might be adding a new type of production or resource extraction, or expanding your base in a direction -- it's very free. It ends up being a lot like tending a garden.

In uFactory, there is no chance for there to be a rhythm, and there are no options. You are (entirely literally!) in a black box, alienated from any understanding or view of any kind of larger purpose. This is of course completely typical and fine for abstract puzzle games, but maybe it's this black box feeling combined with the less-abstract factory aspect that results in something that I just don't enjoy. It feels too lifeless somehow.

Maybe I'm just in a bad mood. uFactory has a lot of polish and attention to detail. The tutorials are fine. It just isn't clicking with me.

(PS, if you haven't already played Production Line, you should probably check it out, it is a better version of this game. it is here)

uFactory is well worth the price! I appreciate the method the game uses to coach you through the required machinery and resources. Too many games these days give you a play-by-play walk through and ruin the challenge. Let me elaborate, you are required to look through a "Manual" which presents the information as if it were taken as notes and sketched in a notebook. This information will guide you on what order to set up your machinery and what resources are required. Figuring out how to deliver said resources at the proper time can be quite challenging! After you have spent hours playing and have mastered the art of delivering resources and parts at the proper time, you can then spend hours upon hours tweaking your factory to higher and higher efficiencies. uFactory also contains some "Hard modes" by allowing you to process raw resources into more elaborate components that would be simply bought in "Easier mode". I happen to be an Automation Engineer in profession and have found the game quite entertaining yet challenging. If you are a perfectionist as I am, you will enjoy hours of fun tweaking your factory until you cannot squeeze any additional production or profit from it. I recommend this game and am eagerly awaiting expansions/updates! As for cons... At this time, the game is in early access and a few achievements are not working correctly. And, of course, you are bound to find a few bugs. However, if you save often, I have not found any game-breaking bugs, and I have been able to complete all scenarios without major issue. Good luck!

A little bit over 2 hours into the game, I think it's safe for me to say this one is not for me. I think it's a good idea. The graphics are nice and the concept itself is fun. The mechanics, although simple, get very complicated by the complexity of the different machines and products. Maybe I'm just not patient enough. It seems the instructions are also hard to follow. I would say, people who like spending longer times analyzing and learning and then putting it to use may enjoy the game better. I recorded my first hour or so with the game if you want a taste for how it looks like. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/428974995

Haven't played a crazy amount (yet), but as a super-early-access title and concept, this game is beyond fantastic. It doesn't have much, but the devs seem to be more than ready to add more scenarios, machines and mechanics to the arsenal. A great puzzle/tycoon sim game, and I'd say it'll easily be worth the $10.

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Graphics: 7/10. (About as good as this type of game can get, great!)

Sound: 8/10. (Great sound effects and music!)

Gameplay: 6/10. (Some frustration and pain figuring things out at the start but lots of fun)

Price/Satisfaction: 8/10. (Well worth it full price, therefore if theres a sale then buy quick!)

Overall: 7.5. (Amazing game. Especially for early development, let's hope it gets even better as the game gets updates :) )

Update 3 (Beer Brewing) Review

I love this game. Its a mixture between a challenging game and a puzzle game.
Very Fun!
I recommend this game ALOT! It gives you hours of challenging fun game play.

This actually is early access, a work in progress, it has some minor issues but the devs seem to be very active and invested in this game(they also seem open to feedback!).

It is similar to other factory games but is a bit more technical with a focus on efficiency. It's priced fairly, wait for a sale if you are on the fence. Looking forward to checking out updates.

Really fun, straightforward factory game. Graphics are clean and simple, and the music is relaxing. Definitely recommend it to anyone who likes factory/production line games, as well as puzzle games.