Factorio

Factorio
Developer(s) Wube Software
Publisher(s) Wube Software
Director(s) Michal "Kovarex" Kovarik
Tomas Kozelek
Designer(s) Michal Kovarik
Programmer(s) Michal Kovarik
Tomas Kozelek
Artist(s) Albert Bertolin (art director)
Vaclav "V453000" Benc
Composer(s) Daniel James Taylor
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux
Genre(s) Action, real-time strategy, survival
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer

Factorio is a real-time strategy video game in development by Wube Software. It has been available as an early-access game since 2014. Development of Factorio, based in Prague, began in 2012, and there has been crowdfunding to support it since 2013. An Indiegogo campaign raised more than its goal, and early-access versions have been sold to raise further funds.

The game follows a man who crash-landed on an alien planet and must harvest resources and create industry to build a rocket[1]; however, as an open-world game, the storyline's end is not necessarily the end of the game. The game has both single- and multiplayer modes.

Gameplay

Factorio is a resource-gathering game with real-time strategy and survival elements, with influences from the BuildCraft and IndustrialCraft mods for the Minecraft video game.[2] The player survives by locating and harvesting resources to craft various tools and machines, which in turn create more advanced materials that allow for the progression to more sophisticated technologies and machines. The game progresses as the player continues to build and manage their automated factory-style system, which automates the mining, transportation, processing, and assembly of resources and products. Players research advanced technologies that allow them to create new structures, items, and upgrades, starting with basic automation and eventually leading to oil refining, drones, and power armor.[3][4]

The current version of the game is formally "won" by launching a rocket with a satellite, although choosing to ignore this goal and instead continue building a factory is possible, as Factorio is an open world game. Construction of a rocket requires massive amounts of resources, motivating the player to set up a sizable, effective factory in order to achieve this goal.

Combat

The player is concerned with defending themselves and their factory from the planet's indigenous fauna, known as Biters, who become increasingly more hostile as pollutant emissions created by the player's factory increase, necessitating consideration of the balance between the player's production and the enemy's aggressiveness. The player can utilize defensive turrets, tanks, and other weapons to eliminate enemies.[5] As the game progresses, enemies become more evolved and harder to defeat.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer mode allows people, both locally and via the internet to play together cooperatively or versus one another.[6][7] Factorio supports both dedicated servers as well as player-hosted listen servers. In the past, the game used peer-to-peer connectivity, however this was removed as more robust options were developed.[8][9] Saved world files can be seamlessly loaded either single- or multiplayer. By default, all players on a server share technologies, unless a system of multiple teams has been instituted by the server host. Friendly fire is present. While the hard limit for players is 65,535, the most popular servers were able to handle a couple hundreds of players.[10]

As of the game's 0.15 update, players can share construction blueprints with other players on their server, via a public blueprint library.[11]

User-made modifications

The game was designed to be customisable via mods to create additional content, such as modifications to gameplay or re-texturing of visual elements. The developers offer an online portal on the Factorio website for mod developers to host their content. To help support the modding community, there is an in-game mod manager that allows players to quickly download mods hosted on the Factorio website. Modifications to the game can be written in Lua.

Development

The game has been developed by a team of developers from Prague since mid 2012. The development team originally consisted of a single person, but has grown larger. Wube Software was created in September 2014 by Michal Kovařík and Tomáš Kozelek in Prague, Czech Republic. To fund the game the development team began an Indiegogo campaign, which started on 31 January 2013 and concluded on 3 March 2013. The campaign raised €21,626 of the €17,000 goal.[12][13][14] Following the crowdfunding success, Wube sold early access editions of the game to raise further funds. The developer credits the April 2014 release of the game's trailer as a significant driver of those sales.[15] As of July 2017, the team consists of 15 members.[16]

One of the game's designers cited the "IndustrialCraft" and "BuildCraft" Minecraft mods for inspiration during the game's development.[2]

The game was released on Steam Early Access on 25 February 2016, and its developers aimed for a full release in summer 2018.[6]

Reception

Although it is still in early access, Factorio has received positive reviews from critics, notably Rock, Paper, Shotgun and Eurogamer.[17][18]

In summer 2017, Wube Software announced that Factorio passed 1 million copies sold,[19] and in summer 2018, the game surpassed 1.5 million copies sold.[20][21]

References

  1. ↑ Dobrovský, Pavel. "Zabijte planetu průmyslem v české budovatelské strategii Factorio". Games.cz. Retrieved 19 May 2014.
  2. 1 2 "kovarex comments on Nerd³ FW – Factorio". Reddit. Retrieved 5 September 2014.
  3. ↑ Jauch, Daniel. "Our Nation's Factorio Review". APGNation. Archived from the original on 17 May 2014. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
  4. ↑ Priestman, Chris. "Factorio Is A Machine-Fetishist's Best Friend". Indie Statik. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
  5. ↑ "Factorio – Content". www.factorio.com. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  6. 1 2 "Factorio FAQ". www.factorio.com. Retrieved 28 August 2017.
  7. ↑ Rogers, Tristan (1 November 2014). "Factorio Gets Multiplayer". SandboxDB. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  8. ↑ "Factorio Headless download". www.factorio.com. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
  9. ↑ Kovarik, Michal (2016-07-15). "Friday Facts #147 - Multiplayer rewrite". www.factorio.com. Retrieved 2018-09-10.
  10. ↑ Kozelek, Tomas (2016-09-16). "Friday Facts #156 - Massive Multiplayer". www.factorio.com. Retrieved 2018-09-10.
  11. ↑ Majerech, Ondřej (2016-12-23). "Friday Facts #170 - Blueprint library GUI design and redesign". www.factorio.com. Retrieved 2018-09-10.
  12. ↑ Smith, Graham. "Factorio Trailer Looks Like A Fun Factory, Has Demo". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
  13. ↑ "Factorio". Indiegogo. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
  14. ↑ Kozelek, Tomas. "Here we are". www.factorio.com. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
  15. ↑ Mike Rose (27 May 2014). "How a single game trailer turned the tide for Factorio". Gamasutra. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
  16. ↑ "Factorio - Team". www.factorio.com. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
  17. ↑ Meer, Alec (2016-03-07). "Factorio: The End Of Management Games". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 2018-01-14.
  18. ↑ Yin-Poole, Wesley (2016-02-26). "Meet Factorio, the wonderfully complex game about designing factories". Eurogamer. Retrieved 2018-01-14.
  19. ↑ "Factorio Has Sold Over 1 Million Copies". techraptor.net. Retrieved 2018-01-14.
  20. ↑ "Factorio". www.factorio.com. Retrieved 2018-09-10.
  21. ↑ "Finální verze české hry Factorio by měla být do roka". České noviny (in Czech). 2018-07-23. Retrieved 2018-01-14.
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