Factory Town: Cute but Complex City Building

Factory Town is an amazing indie game that is both relaxing and challenging.

Progress through the research tree and improve the well-being of your town’s inhabitants without fear of death and starvation. 

Enjoy the opportunity to automate everything through logistics systems that are as complex or as simple as you prefer.

Have fun solving the puzzle that is Factory Town!

Developer

It is always amazing and inspiring to find out that a game is developed by one single person. It is particularly amazing and inspiring in this case because Factory Town is HUGE in the number of features and opportunities it offers.

Let’s all congratulate Erik Asmussen on releasing Factory Town this November after several years in early access.

By the way, if you want to learn more about the type of things Erik Asmussen likes to do, check out 82 Apps.

Progression

City builders often come with a plot, but Factory Town is driven by its progression routes and research trees rather than a story.

You start out with a town center and four workers, and you can build a few houses to increase the number of workers… and then you do what you want to do!

Do you want a huge, efficient, well-automated city? Absolutely no problem with that.

Do you want a realistically sprawling city that arranges itself around the existing resources? You can do that.

Do you want a net of specialized little towns that supply different goods to the capital? Totally possible, too.

You can even do a speedrun, with you opening every option on the research tree. Although what counts as speedrun in this game will probably take quite a few hours.

In fact, you can make the town pretty, add flower beds and little benches on a plaza for the citizens to enjoy. There are not too many decorative elements, but there are some, and with enough creativity, you can make your town look very nice.

Gameplay

Factory Town has a few different modes of playing. Campaigns help orient you in the mechanics of the game. Custom playthroughs depend on your preferences; you can get a lot of things customized, from the amount of resources to the specifics of the terrain. The sandbox is there to let you create the perfect town (or net of towns), with no resource shortage to hold you back.

Note that in any mode of playing, you can change the terrain and plant resources; it simply is not free outside of the sandbox mode.

This city builder is classic in its key elements: units, buildings, and research. However, it is the focus on automation and paths (from literal paths to rails to conveyor belts) that makes the game stand out.

There are logistics and computing that can help you create complex paths, making the transportation of resources and their management as efficient as possible.

Now, not everybody is good at logistics and computing, but please do not let that stop you from enjoying Factory Town. The game is amazingly good at keeping you interested in what is happening on the screen.

The research tree in this game is great. It does not exist just to reward you with advanced tools; it exists to keep you from being overwhelmed by everything that the game has to offer.

As you master every new technology, you get enough time to play with it, get acquainted with it, and become ready for the new things to come.

I would not say that there are no instances of needing to wait for the new thing, but if you are waiting too long for the resources required for that next step, you might want to check your methods of collecting them. Maybe you can improve something and make the wait shorter.

Or don’t do that and just set everything up before leaving the game be for a while. It is by no means an idle game, but there is no harm in treating it like one every once in a while.

The collection of resources comes with its own twists and tweaks. The source of key resources is the inhabitants of your town. 

They consume the goods you produce and reward you with different coins and research points. Note that these resources are produced by different buildings; your citizens go to the general store for clothes and to the food store for foods.

You need to arrange your town or towns to have enough stores for everybody to visit (and give you the money).

A thing that might not be immediately obvious (especially if you skip the campaigns and go straight to custom games) is that humans need water. They will not die without it, but you will not get paid if you do not supply it. So, make sure you supply water to the stores or directly to the houses!

Why do humans survive without water? Well, in this game, you do not have to worry about your units dying. No, this game is too cute and chill to let anyone die.

Just build the town at your own pace, improving the lives of your people; they will pick up the slack.

The number of different options and opportunities in Factory Town might still be overwhelming, but please do not let it deter you. Study the buildings and what they can and can’t do. Learn the different tricks that make logistics easier. Customize your quick access bar. Note that Factory Town has a lot of convenient menus.

Discovering all this can be so very satisfying as long as you decide to dedicate enough time to the process. 

Critique

And… there is so much more. There is trade, and there is magic. The maps can be very large, and the game clearly pushes you to explore all of them. In fact, it is almost required to reach the end goal of Factory Town.

However, you can always customize your playthrough, which, among other things, includes the option of not having an end goal.

The game definitely pushes you to create multiple towns, and letting them specialize in different resource collection would work perfectly.

Oh, and the music is sweet and has vaguely medieval vibes, and the the graphic design is pleasant and cute. The game has a very nice, peaceful feel to it, and it can be a very relaxing experience.

After a few years in the early access, Factory Town seems to be quite polished, too. With how many things it incorporates, it is so, so impressive, especially since the developer is one single person.

But never let it be said that any game is perfect. The research tree is very well-arranged, but there does come a time when there is just too much of everything.

I would recommend leaving the game for a little bit if overwhelmed and coming back to try and rekindle your interest in it because Factory Town is definitely worth it.

Each playthrough is likely to take quite a while. Do not expect a short campaign outside of the initial inbuilt campaigns; you will need some time to reach the end goal.

That said, the end goal is customizable, and, in fact, you can select different starting periods in the custom campaigns, letting you get access to more advanced sets of technologies at the very beginning.

Not everyone will be interested in exploring the entirety of the map, too, and that can be a problem, especially since you need to find certain structures to finish the game. However, there is enough customization to avoid that sort of thing and make sure that the game remains interesting for you personally.

In fact, it is the customization that really boosts the chance of Factory Town being loved by those who play it.

It might not be the perfect introduction to the genre due to its complexity, but if city builders are interesting to you in the slightest, if you like logistics, if you enjoy learning rules and finding the ways to play by them, Factory Town is your kind of game.

Conclusion

Available on Steam, Factory Town is great for city builder fans.

Complex but customisable, this cute indie game developed by just one person is full of interesting features to learn about and incorporate into your unique strategy. 

Build your town, automate the resource extraction and management, be creative, and enjoy this peaceful and relaxing but engaging game.