Game Review: Infinifactory is GREAT if you like building contraptions.

[tuftears]

There's a very modest amount of story, enough to keep things going, but this game is very tightly focused on its core gameplay: you are presented with a modest number of things generating widgets; you assemble a number of devices to roll, push, rotate, sometimes destroy and sometimes weld together, these widgets until they form the desired output, and then you push the finished device out the door.

That's it in a nutshell! Where this game does much better than SpaceChem is that you are no longer constrained to a tight matrix. You can make huge sprawling devices, in three dimensions no less. Correspondingly, you are also rewarded (in terms of seeing where you rank on a histogram of solutions) by building faster solutions, smaller solutions, and solutions using fewer blocks. Also even though you have a relatively simple set of devices, over time you'll discover that these devices can combine for much more sophisticated functions. Some people have even implemented simple calculators with the factory mechanisms.

If you like puzzles and things that go whirr, buzz, and clank, then you should definitely check out Infinifactory. Definitely a five star game for me.

I'll attach an animated GIF of my Fusion Reactor solution here:

Comments

[merrycalliope.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm so glad you are enjoying that game! I had a feeling it might be something you'd like. :D

Ofc I have to pimp the soundtrack. Here's the page with M's notes on each track and links to the music.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that's handy. ^_^

[rowyn]

There comes a point where games look too much like work to motivate me to play them. c_c

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Aw, it's not like it's a spreadsheet and a bunch of numbers. :)

[rowyn]

But spreadsheet and numbers are fu --

... okay, point taken. n_n

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

I didn't screenshot the exteriors but I really liked the fact that almost all the Infinifactory levels are set in space and you can, generally, just go gawking around and looking at things... And you get rewarded in some cases by finding the 'failure logs' of previous Infinifactory managers. There's enough story to the game to keep it from being just 'go here, do this'.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Huh. Gwendel has been looking at this game. (Well, that, and a BAZILLION others, but still.) Plus, apparently when she signs into Steam, lately she's commented on seeing notifications to the effect that "{TuftEars} is playing Infinifactory," so that might have something to do with it, too. :D

(For the time being, however, it looks like Minecraft is still the main time-soak, since one of our friends just started up a new "tech" modpack server and started a Galacticraft "space race." As I don't have the option of spending my daytime hours playing video games, and have at least a FEW other things to occupy my time in the evenings, I don't consider myself a serious contender, and Gwendel spends "too much" time making things looking nice. ;) )

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

It's a pretty solid game. I've been going back and trying to make faster solutions. Turn up the input rate to MAX, then try to make a factory that can keep up with the flood.