The premise of Factorio is simple, you have been sent to an alien planet to check how hospitable it is, get a production line going and send back a rocket to let everyone know you have survived the ordeal, so they can come over in droves and populate the place. I don’t know what line of work this poor guy is in, an engineer of some kind would make the most sense, but my God, did he draw the mother of all short straws. Sent to a planet, infested with large monsters, all so he can build an entire fucking rocket all by his lonesome. I would be down the union leaders office every damn day demanding something like Ion cannon assistance, a raise at the very least. Or how about some female company to keep me warm at nights, when I’m not building factories, so I can build more factories. Oh, I see what you did there, Factorio, well played.

I suppose that’s Factorio in a nutshell. You gather materials, and use said materials to make things, and then use said things to make more things. Just like any other crafting game. The difference being, Factorio is focused on automation. By the end of the game you will need so many parts for the damn rocket, it would take you years to craft them all by hand. So along the way, you set up factories, and conveyer belts, and inserters, and pretty soon you’ve got yourself a self-sustained copper wire factory, or an iron gear wheel factory, or whatever, until you start running out of precious ore.

Hastily, you check the map, hope to Christ, the pollution you have been spreading rapidly hasn’t reached any enemies yet, and thus keeping them docile. You find a patch of copper relatively nearby. You venture forth with everything needed to set up a copper mine. Electric mining drills, power lines and conveyor belts. An hour later, when you finally made it back to base camp, and the copper slowly starts to pile up again, you notice the iron ore is now suddenly dwindling. Again, you check the map, locate the iron, venture out, and realise you no longer have any miners. So you craft them, claim your iron ore, and by the time you’re back, the fucking coal will be gone. Your base will have no power, as you can’t yet afford the Solar panel research, so you’re entire operation is still steam powered. Now none of the turrets are active. Aliens swarm left and right, but your little, pussy handgun does them no damage, because you decided to forgo the Military research. They tear through your hard work like fat kids devouring cake after weeks of being locked away at fat camp. The game over screen even has the audacity to mock how little you achieved in the hours wasted playing this nonsense.

You will not be deterred however. You spawn another world. Build up crude mines, already checking the map for eventual outposts. This time you are prepared. By the time the irons goes, you have set up a second mine, the copper, ditto, coal? No problem. Turrets keep the aliens at bay. And then, like a shining ray of hope cast down from the heavens above, you finish researching robots. Suddenly the game snaps into focus, as hundreds of worker robots, build and transport materials across your whole base. You now no longer have to do anything yourself, as the robots will take of it. Finally, you can exact your revenge on life, tell robots to venture forth into alien territory, laugh manically as they crumble to alien claws. You can build more, so who cares. You tell other robots to bring back the ones that died in combat so you can bury them under headstones with the names of everyone who sent you to this God forsaken planet. Now you just hope that by the time they arrive, you won’t have a headstone for yourself, so you can see the looks on their faces. So they finally realise the gravity of their decision.

Factorio is simultaneously one of the most infuriating, and satisfying experiences rolled into one. When everything is going in your favour, the game is great. When, you don’t have to worry about finding more resources, and just utilising what you have, it feels fantastic. Just watching a base that has been mostly automated is oddly satisfying. Other times though, it can feel less like a game, and more like an endless list of chores, grating away at your sanity, ceaselessly nagging at the back of your skull like the voices in my head.

“You’re running out of Coal.”

“There is not enough Oil.”

“Aliens just ate nine turrets.”

“Do something with your life!”

“Get a job!”

“You disgust me!”

Shut the fuck up Factorio, you don’t know me!