The Formal Deconstruction Analysis of Factorio
Introduction
Background
Factorio was developed and published by Wube Software, available for Windows (PC), OS x (Mac), and Linux. Created by a team of 10 in Prague, Czech Republic. This game has been in development for about 4 years now since their Indiegogo (online crowd-funding platform) campaign in 2013. Even though this indie game has not yet officially been released and is currently in alpha the traction it has received on steam is overwhelmingly positive. It currently retails on Steam (a digital distribution platform for games) as an Early Access Game for $20 USD. Factorio is an Action, real-time strategy, survival, resource management game. It features both campaign, puzzle and sandbox gameplay. It can be played in both single-player and multiplayer.
The inspiration of this game came from Minecraft when the Industrial Craft mod was released. This allowed players to generate electricity, power machinery, and automate mining and production of resources. Following the same concept but scaled up massively along with a storyline.
Factorio’s game core consists of a couple of different core mechanics.
Territorial acquisition — This game focuses on the fight between the alien and the player for territory and the use of resources. Most of the time the game’s antagonist is defending resources that the player needs for survival. The only way to acquire territory of the other race is through the battle of man vs alien.
Spatial reasoning — Even though this mechanic is not one of the explicit ones, it defiantly plays a big roll during the automation process you are creating throughout the game. You have to take into account how much resources will be brought into your facilities and the efficiency of electricity used throughout the game.
Survival — Is the main and most explicit mechanic in the game as it focuses on the natural instincts for survival, such as preparation, defence, planning for the future, and preparing for alien attacks.
Building — also being one of the most explicit mechanics as the whole game is based around building and automatic machinery to gather and process resources to develop and expand throughout the game.
Collection — being a big core mechanic yet not so explicit in the beginning stages of the game development and introduction. The need to collect resources to expand and advance through the game.
Welcome Screen
The game itself consists of 3 main gameplay options in the game welcome screen.
- Tutorial — allows the player to get used to the game mechanics and how the game is played out through simple challenges that progressively get hard and take more time to complete. Also includes tips and tricks that allow the player to understand all the game mechanics.
- Campaign — Leads the player through a storyline that eventually ends with the player building a rocket ship to escape the planet and the aliens inhabiting it.
- Puzzles — According to Greg Costikyan “Puzzles are static; they present the “player” with a logic structure to be solved with the assistance of clues. “Games,” by contrast, are not static, but change with the player’s actions.” This being said, the puzzles included along with this game might not specifically be part of the game, or a game at all, but they are their to introduce you to smaller, but difficult missions that you have to accomplish in a set period of time. This game mode focuses more on the skill aspect and theory of building efficient automated structures, that can deliver what you need in time, with little resources.
Dramatic elements
Story
The story of the game is still currently under development of adding specific details and a concrete story line. Which means the series of events that create the arc of the story is still not quite there. A very vague concept is implemented which creates the structure of the game. The game follows around the concept of a group of colonists/spaceman being sent to a planet with a artillery defence to defend the landing of their ships. Not everything goes according to plan as the protagonist crashes on the planet. These circumstances leave the player(single-player)/players(multiplayer) stranded with nothing. The only way for survival is to harvest resources and build up an industrial colony to face the aliens of the planet.
Challenge
The ultimate goal for the player is to build and launch a rocket to the moon. This is done by acquiring large amounts of resources throughout the game; something that would be quite a long process, is overcome by the players need to construct conveyer belt style factories that, gather, process, and create new materials: which are used for research of new technologies in the later part of the game. The game achieves it’s flow from the combination of skills required to build energy efficient factories with the ability to combat the alien species on the planet.
Play
To formally analyze the type of play this game consists of, I will be deconstructing from Roger Cailloi’s 4 types of play perspective. The complexity of this game breaks down into the Agon (competitive play) where you are challenged to survive among an alien race and defend your territory and resources. While having the dimension of freedom of Paida where there are no set rules in place to the way of survival you want to take.
Premise
Once again since the game is not officially released there are no set premise attributes to the game.
- Time — There is currently no set time to the game, assumed that it takes time in the future because of the wide range of technologies being used in the game such as flying robots, laser turrets, the amount of automation that usually cannot be achieved in our present reality.
- Place — It is not specifically specified if this is a planet that has extremely similar environments as planet earth or is in fact planet earth in the future after it has been taken over by an alien race.
- Main Characters — Since you are alone on the planet there are no other main characters that interact with you in the game. Unless you are playing multiplayer, then you are all spacemen in the same situation that crash landed all together. When you begin to play the game it is pretty obvious that you are pretty knowledgeable on how to create and build some complex machinery without any research such as steam powered generators, coal-furnaces, and basic machinery required for automation such as conveyer belts and inserters. Other then what is implicitly assumed there is not much more characterization that comes along with the character.
- Objective — The objective of the game is with time to build an empire of automated machines that gather and process resources to allow the player to be able to develop new technologies during the production of resources for the new technologies. Eventually building up to more automated and technologically advanced methods of automation.
- Action — The action that propels the story forward is the ability to manage and balance of the automation process with speed and efficient use of power, while maintaining a proper defence system within your territory.
Characters
Protagonist (Player)
- Main Character — The character you play as, during the game. (Read more under premise for more information on the main character.)
Antagonist (Enemy/Computer)
- Biters — native inhabitants and live in peace among the rest of the aliens inhabiting the planet. The biters are arthropods which live in nests among their friends, the spitters and the worms. The biters are triggered by two things. First, the invasion of their territory. For example, if you come in proximity to a biter and into it’s personal bubble. Second, the pollution that is created by factories. For example, if there are a large amount of factories packed densely in one areas producing high amount of pollution, this will cause biters and their fellow friends to come and destroy whatever is causing the pollution, along with you.
- Spitters — Similar to Biters, the only difference is the ranged attack is an acidic projectile that cannot be dodged.
- Worms — Also closely related to the Biters and Spitters. Worms are like static turrets and do not move around. They maintain their position but can cause much more damage from a far greater range then any Spitter or Biter.
Formal Systems
Players
The game consists of 3 different player interaction patterns
- Player vs Game (single-player) — This game is the original interaction pattern in the game Factorio, it focuses on the protagonist (player) vs antagonist (alien race/computer) with no other interactions such as player vs environment.
- Co-operative vs. Game (multiplayer) — This game interaction pattern is the typical multiplayer playing pattern that allows both players to work and build an automation empire co-operatively.
- Multiple Individual vs. Game (multiplayer) — This game interaction pattern is a concept that has been modded into the game later to allow players to build their own empires while still having a common enemy yet allowing player vs. player game interaction as well.
Objectives
- Alignment/Construction — The alignment of factories to automate the processing and production of resources.
- Exploration — Players through time and research (in-game) find new technologies to develop and further explore their process of automation.
Procedures
- Starting — You begin with no resources, slowly gather resources to begin building machinery to process those resources into more resources to later automate those structures using inserters and conveyer belts.
- Progression — Eventually with time you will make complex structures and patterns of automated machines that will be hard to figure out for a beginner but for a player that has played before will understand the general idea of what is happening in the automation process.
- Special — With time alien race will attack or you will have to take over their territory to expand your automated factories. This will require combat between you and the enemey.
- Resolving — This is when you have essentially researched everything in the game and automated everything in the game where you are now able to gather enough resources to build a rocket ship.
Rules/Mechanics
Since the objects and concepts in this game are so complex and have a huge hierarchy of all the recipes, I will not be able to explain and touch upon all of them. Please see full recipe list for Factorio here. You can also play the game in tutorial mode where you will learn new things through the tips windows throughout the game and eventually discover new objects and concepts in the game with gameplay. I also do not want to include them here as it would be spoilers to the gameplay itself.
Players are free to experiment and acquire resources on their own. The limitations to this is obviously the player are limited into making only factory based objects. Unlike in other games such as Minecraft, players are open to experiment with farming, potions, and different building materials.
Since this is a Paida (free-form) style game, as well as it is considered a sandbox style game in a way there is no authority of what you can and cannot do. Some missions include staying alive or defeating the enemy but it is up to your discretion on how you would like to do so.
What makes this game very fun is the rules are simple in Factorio.
- Find
- Gather
- Produce
- Repeat
- Automate (whenever possible)
- Storyline (Final release of the game)
Resources
Essentially all the resources in the game are gathered over time. The core resources are usually limited and scattered around the world, as well as protected by the enemy.
- Wood — Is not a renewable resource in the game once gathered it does not regrow in its place, the only way to get more wood is to expand out into other territories.
- Coal — Coal is considered one of the main resources used to power most of the machinery in the game as well as the steam generators that are essential in the beginning part of the game. This resource is non-renewable and must be gathered by expanding out into other territories.
- Iron Ore/Copper Ore — Are the most important core resources used for the production of 95% of the game’s technology advancements. This resource is non-renewable and must be gathered by expanding out into other territories.
- Stone — Stone is used in the beginning of the game to gather the core resources for the production of the basic machinery used in the game. Later stone is used to make defence systems such as stone walls to protect yourself and your territory from the enemy when being attacked. This resource is non-renewable and must be gathered by expanding out into other territories.
- Alien Artifact — Alien artifacts are used to research higher and more advanced technologies to progress through the game. This resource is non-renewable and must be gathered by defeating the alien race.
- Water — Is used to generate power using steam generators as well as advanced oil processing in the later stages of the game.
- Crude Oil — Crude oil is used as a fuel in the later part of the game. This resource is non-renewable and must be gathered by expanding out into other territories.
- Health — Is regenerated overtime but is essential for survival and continuation of the game.
For more information on resources and recipes visit: Factorio Resources
Conflict
Even though the general storyline is developed in the game, the advanced conflict is yet to be determined in the final release of the game. Expected time: Summer 2016
The main conflict used in this game is “opponents”. Focusing on the player interaction with the computer-controlled enemies (aliens race).
Boundaries
Overall this game tries to use pretty realistic concepts of the creation and automation process in the game compared to the real world. As well as the physics in terms of the interaction with resources, and the general gameplay of the game.
Automation — Since the main focus of the game is the automation process the player is withdrawn from the magic circle when realizes that the automation in the real world like in this game could not be technically possible due to the amortization period of all the machinery, unlike in the game where the machinery does not break down unless destroyed by the enemy.
Read more about the magic circle below.
Outcome
The end game is when you finally gather and process enough resources to build a rocket ship to shoot yourself from the planet. Since players invest such large amount of time building, constructing, defending, and surviving. They get emotional invested into their creations allowing the user to feel and be rewarded with being able to finally build what they were aiming for since the beginning of the game.
Design of the Game
The Magic Circle
As soon as you are placed in this world with nothing but trees around you, and the sun is setting before your eyes, with nothing but a flashlight in your hand. You know you have to survive, you are automatically immersed in this game where you have to do anything in your power to avoid the 6 legged beasts that will do anything for your blood. Avoiding the aesthetics of the game, but rather interpreting that as an industrial art style you can fall into the magic circle easily. When I looked at this game before touching it, and just by looking at the screenshots of the game a couple hours in, I didn’t see how I could make sense of all the conveyers, all the moving parts. The fact that the game immerses you in the circle with time, deeper and deeper, and slowly attaching you to your creations and hard work of automating, there is no way out but the power outage that can shutdown your computer.
Aesthetics and User Experience
It’s hard to say that this game looks fantastic, especially the early snapshots of the game when it was first featured on Indiegogo, it was hard to fall in love with it. It was the time when Minecraft came out and everyone thought they can bring pixel art back. It’s difficult, its hard to find the right balance between what will strain your eyes and confuse you with what looks good and rather is a simple style of art. With the development of the game throughout the years, the game improved drastically in terms of art. Even though the game is considered pixelated, it flows and contrasts well with moving parts in the game. The look and feel of the game is definitely getting better and hardly affects the user’s experience of the magic circle.
Players around the world have developed mods for the game to make the graphics more “smooth” and have more detail to the game objects. When I tried it, it actually took away from the grungy, industrial feel of the game.
What is my own view of the game?
I think the game has lots of potentially, definitely lots of space for expansion and with time, a strong storyline can be built in the game. I think the sandbox aspect of the game is still crucial for the folks that just want to work on their technique of efficiency and playing around with their creativity of automation.
Ways I would improve the game?
At the current stage the game is a 2D game with no ability to rotate. I don’t believe it will ever be changed just because the nature of the game. If this was an option though, I would definitely consider playing this game in 3D, just to see how it would feel like. The reason I don’t think this feature would ever be implemented is due to the fact that players’ creations could get very complex, the incorporation of different perspectives can slow down the game drastically and potentially make it slower, requiring stronger hardware to play the game. I recommend you guys try the game! Let me know what you think about it down below in the comments!
