[HN Gopher] How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me
___________________________________________________________________
How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley and me
Author : 005vc16607
Score : 82 points
Date : 2024-10-26 06:33 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ft.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ft.com)
| MarkMarine wrote:
| https://archive.is/2sRrE
| perihelions wrote:
| The primary source is
|
| https://www.ft.com/content/b9e419c6-acf1-420b-8ae6-908feb52c... (
| _" How 'Factorio' seduced Silicon Valley -- and me"_)
|
| (Cool fourth-wall breaking moment seeing an HN'er featured in the
| FT!)
| dang wrote:
| (We moved this comment from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41954555)
|
| Three HNers (at least!)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=xal
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=patio11
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=kentonv
| kentonv wrote:
| And the author of the article contacted me because of this
| old HN comment:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26593117
|
| (Also, I am typing this while alt-tabbed out of Factorio...)
| Centigonal wrote:
| You could replace this whole article with https://xkcd.com/356/
|
| Also, if you like Factorio Youtube videos, I'm a big fan of
| https://www.youtube.com/@DoshDoshington
| Xeronate wrote:
| The article mentions one of the main appeals of factorio is you
| get to think like a programmer without bosses/overhead from
| actual work but it's always been hard to get into games for that
| reason because I could just work on a side project with the same
| result. I really don't understand the appeal.
| dunefox wrote:
| I don't either. I tried getting into it (and recently
| Satisfactory) and I find it boring.
| OrigamiPastrami wrote:
| I remember when Guitar Hero came out I didn't understand why
| anybody would play that instead of just buying a guitar. The
| point is the videogame itself is designed to be fun and remove
| plenty of other elements from the real life equivalent that
| focuses more on enjoyment and less on grinding it out. If
| you're thinking about "what have I accomplished?" instead of
| "I'm having so much fun!" then it might not be for you.
|
| The other aspect is there are plenty of people that like to
| think like programmers, but have no experience programming and
| the barrier to entry for a videogame is substantially lower
| than even figuring out a "hello world!" program for someone who
| wouldn't even know how to pick a programming language.
| cole-k wrote:
| Your comparison hits home for me. I have been playing guitar
| on-and-off for over a decade (OK, maybe more like _trying_ to
| play guitar) and I still really enjoy Guitar Hero.
|
| It's instant gratification: I don't have as much fun
| practicing at .75x speed with a metronome to learn the hard
| part of a piece. Instead a video game tells me how great I am
| at "guitar" by being able to push buttons and strum on the
| beat, not to mention that I hear the sounds of my favorite
| songs come out when I do it.
|
| For a similar reason, I like Rocksmith (guitar hero but with
| a real guitar), but the gratification is not quite so
| instant. They gamify the practicing part but I still need to
| do it, otherwise the part I'm playing actually sounds bad.
| And sight-reading is so much harder when there are more than
| 5 buttons.
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| As someone that plays music professionally and who enjoyed
| Rock Band, I think that the issue is a lot of folks find
| satisfaction in matering skills and checking off boxes that
| other folks design for them.
|
| Designing a satisfying skill progression takes a lot of work.
| I know what I will have to do if I, say, take up mandolin
| again seriously, and it's daunting- and worse, maybe it won't
| even lead to a satisfying or useful end... I will still do
| that at some point. I had the same feeling about cello or
| pedal steel guitar, and they all turned out okay.
|
| At the same time I totally understand why following simple
| tutorials, running a preset course, climbing an established
| route, riding already-cleared bike trails, or playing a video
| game with few possible outcomes can be satisfying.
| runeblaze wrote:
| Same here. Also Factorio AFAIK has no good copilot. Sadly the
| best LLMs are not fine-tuned on Factorio so my productivity
| takes a massive hit when moving from side projects to Factorio.
| Retr0id wrote:
| I can't tell if you're being serious or not here lol
| thih9 wrote:
| Are there any popular games with copilot like AI suggestions
| being part of the core gameplay?
| indigoabstract wrote:
| Lol. My parser failed at this step, so I had to look it up:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I'm looking over the sentences in the comment you replied
| to and I can't figure out where you would have gotten lost,
| can you quote the partial sentence that confused you?
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| I feel guilty every time I turn on Factorio and basically no
| longer play it because I know I could have just as much
| enjoyment building something for the real world.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| I've yet to find something I can do in the real world that's
| as enjoyable, accessible, affordable, and easy to pick up and
| put down as Factorio, or similar games (that scratch a
| "builder" itch). What sort of things do you have in mind?
|
| * edited for clarity, typos
| oersted wrote:
| I do get the appeal of games, it is one of my long-time
| passions, but indeed that's the issue with games like Factorio
| specifically, they feel too much like work, so might as well do
| work.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I feel the same about another pretty chill game, Dave the
| Diver. It has a _great_ feedback loop, at the beginning
|
| Once I get successful in it, I'm like "but I should be making
| money in the real world, not this world" as I do have side
| projects. the game does turn into a slog, if you approach it
| that way
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| Dave the Diver just turns into a slog is all. It's
| fantastic at the start when everything is novel, and all
| the systems hold promise. But the systems themselves turn
| out to not have good gameplay loops, so right around the
| underwater village it starts to kinda suck, which
| ironically is right around when all the systems are mature
| enough that to play well you have a giant list of "todo"
| items across a variety of systems, many of which you may
| find boring, but are obliged to interact with anyway, sort
| of like real life.
|
| The advantage a game like factorio has over DtD is that you
| can kind of abandon huge sections and "start fresh" while
| still collecting rent from the work you did earlier to fund
| your new excursions. I guess DtD does this to a degree, but
| there's a lot less freedom of intellectual movement.
|
| This is why I like Against the Storm. It is a novel (if
| familiar) challenge every time, and every time you "beat
| the odds" the game _forces_ you to move on to the next
| harder challenge, "you beat this puzzle, you need a harder
| on."
| yieldcrv wrote:
| just looked up Against the Storm, looks like the board
| game Agricola, where the goal is to build and farm and
| survive the winter. I always found Agricola ironic, in
| that is masquarades as a PvP game, where your survival
| outcome is then compared to the other players, but its
| very stressful as there are not enough resources on the
| board for your family.
|
| so thats what made it too much like real life for me,
| because you're like struggling but then pretending like
| you are flexing (look at the size of my house! my farm!),
| but really everyone barely made it at all
|
| maybe Against the Storm as a single player journey makes
| more sense
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > Once I get successful in it, I'm like "but I should be
| making money in the real world, not this world" as I do
| have side projects. the game does turn into a slog, if you
| approach it that way
|
| _Life_ is a slog if approached that way. Spending your
| time chasing more money instead of enjoying life is the
| quickest way to have a miserable existence.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I find the game motivational after a very profitable
| shift, in game.
|
| But I wasn't looking for devil's advocate or solutions,
| us guys need to affirm each other's experiences more
| often.
|
| I also do enjoy very profitable sessions in life, the
| pursuit of money itself is fulfilling for me as it
| already is a massive multiplayer game pvp. Additionally,
| I would usually prefer to be doing entertainment options
| exclusive to the level of profits that have been
| manifested. But I love the existence that allows me to
| play video games with no consequence.
| dietr1ch wrote:
| This, long ago a roomate got into Factorio and after figuring
| out the basics ended up admitting that it felt way too much
| like work. This has been my reason to stay out of Factorio
| even though plenty of people have recommended it to me. I did
| a short collaborative run of Mindustry and I feel I don't
| need to play Factorio, plus, Counter-Strike chugs all my
| playing time, to me it's a bit like cocaine made a game and
| except for griding aim, it scratches all the right spots in
| my (smooth?) brain.
|
| It's the trucking game for truckers in my mind, only a madman
| would play it after work.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| The problem with side projects is that they do not have a well
| defined goal. Or they do, in which case something like Factorio
| won't have any appeal because you can just work on something
| more meaningful instead. Factorio is for people who want to
| keep programming but are too frustrated or cynical about the
| real world to do it there. If the real world was better, they
| would do it there. If the real world could be fixed with
| programming, they would do it there. Many have tried, only to
| discover that what they thought were technical problems are
| really people problems.
| chpatrick wrote:
| Because you don't always have a fun side project and Factorio
| is designed to keep providing them for hours and hours.
| mrkramer wrote:
| >Factorio is designed to keep providing them for hours and
| hours
|
| It's called replayability, the crucial selling point of every
| successful game.
| abecedarius wrote:
| There's an in-between experience with the likes of the Natural
| Number Game or Project Euler -- it feels like there should be
| so much more of that kind of thing to substitute for so much of
| legacy education. Most "learning games" afaik are too
| "schooley".
|
| I haven't played Factorio so far; for those who haven't
| programmed, do you think you're learning something new and
| somewhat transferable?
| seanthemon wrote:
| Zacktronics games might fit this bill
| grensley wrote:
| Sometimes you just want to expend energy in a direction that
| doesn't have consequences. I hold the opposite opinion from you
| in that people ought to be able to turn off the "any non-
| productive minute of my life is wasted" mindset.
|
| You're on big space rock, dude.
| aphantastic wrote:
| Mindusry scratches the same itch, but in perhaps a slightly
| more appealing way for me at least. Rather than the entire game
| being dedicated to creating one massive monolith dedicated to
| the one goal of rocket building or whatever, there are many
| different levels each where you're just playing classic tower
| defense and using the layout of the map to your advantage to
| extract resources and kill bad guys. It's casual and FOSS.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| The stakes (there are none except ones you set for yourself)
|
| The timeline (quick returns, but a long scale of challenges you
| can build up to. Lots of side projects out there with 0 users.)
|
| You can play with friends
|
| You can also pay 1/4 attention until you need to design
| something complex in the game. I find it fun, I can turn my
| brain off for a bit but then re/engage for the fun complex
| stuff.
|
| I stopped playing as much myself because I wanted to either
| work on professional development (side projects, learning more)
| or actually make things with my hands (woodworking, chair
| making, fixing an old truck) that were real breaks from
| software engineering, and easier to share with my kids.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Factorio is more fun than any side project. While it hits a
| similar area of the brain as programming does (the problem
| solving zone), it's definitely not the same.
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| Is there a better graphics version of factorio? And no I don't
| mean Satisfactory or Dyson Sphere Program though those are good
| games in their own rights, I mean something with the same level
| of depth and camera as factorio.
| dcre wrote:
| Better in what sense?
| philsnow wrote:
| I love Factorio but the graphics look a bit like 1996 SVGA
| 256-color sprites (edit: by which I mean, I feel like there
| is noticeable dithering). I haven't played the new "Factorio
| in space" bits, maybe it gets out of the browns-and-beige
| color palette a bit more?
| btmiller wrote:
| I love the art for two reasons:
|
| 1. It's simple, charming, and nostalgic.
|
| 2. I view it as a defense mechanism against the onslaught
| of modern gaming that's locked in a race to the lowest
| common denominator (i.e. "Stay away! This game isn't for
| you!" ;) )
| marcosdumay wrote:
| You don't like the design aesthetic?
|
| Because your phrased your question like people that
| complain about the level of detail. Yes, factorio is ugly
| (although some trees are beautiful). And yes, that's a
| design decision.
|
| There are some mods that reskin it. Personally, I don't
| think any of them are beautiful.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > by which I mean, I feel like there is noticeable
| dithering
|
| Any chance you have the game set to use 16-bit color?
| MarkMarine wrote:
| I haven't found one, and really as you get later in the game
| the retro graphics are a blessing. I play on my work Mac (most
| powerful thing in the house) and I end up having to bail early
| because I just can't have a megabase over a certain size,
| everything grinds to a halt.
| solardev wrote:
| What kinda depth are you missing from DSP and Satisfactory? And
| what do you mean by "camera"?
|
| There's also Shapez 1 and 2, which is like the essence of
| Factorio abstracted into shapes and colors. Shapez 2 has more
| mining and trains and multiple levels.
| ekidd wrote:
| I guess it depends on what you mean by "better graphics"?
| They're upgraded their graphics several times over the years.
| I'm playing on a 4K monitor and they're using most of those
| pixels. I can see a small amount of interpolation at full zoom
| at 4K.
|
| If you zoom in, the graphics are high-res 2D sprites, rendered
| from 3D models. And the level of detail can be ridiculous. From
| this week's Factorio 2.0 update (and Space Age add-on), here's
| an example of the zoomed-in detail:
| https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-396 See the foundry
| animations? Those videos are actually slightly more blurred
| than the in-game version. And the sound effects are synced to
| specific animation frames.
|
| So the world of Factorio is oftentimes brown and grim and
| covered in grime, but that's a conscious artistic choice. (Not
| all of the new planets are brown. Gleba is green and
| irridescent and frankly creepy.) Similarly, Factorio's 2D
| nature has allowed the developers to focus on gameplay and
| quality-of-life more than many newer games in the genre. If you
| want to build big, intricate factories with complex train
| networks, for example, Factorio really shines.
|
| If anyone would like a game with 3D graphics, or a different
| graphics style, try:
|
| - Satisfactory: The 3D world is gorgeous, and Satisfactory
| shines at "walk around inside your factory and tinker with it."
| Gameplay-wise, it has only recently gained blueprinting tools
| that allow working at a medium level of abstraction.
|
| - Shapez 2.0: This is pretty and colorful and full of great
| little puzzles. It occupies a different part of the game-design
| space and is just a joy to play.
|
| (Dyson Sphere Project and Captain of Industry also have great
| gameplay, but I don't know if their graphics are likely to grab
| people who find Factorio graphically underwhelming.)
| chasd00 wrote:
| I get a real kick out of playing builder games with my son. We
| played Jurassic park evolution a lot, I would direct contracts
| and what to build and then we'd discuss and he would build it.
| Heh it was like being team lead without the pressure and anxiety.
| dowakin wrote:
| BTW "Factorio: Space Age" was release a few days ago. Personally,
| I'm going to spend whole Sunday playing it :)
| DonHopkins wrote:
| I've started a new Space Age game, too!
|
| With the understanding that you can regularly leave Factorio
| running overnight or even all week to build up resources, how
| many hours have other hard core Factorio players logged?
|
| My Factorio play time is up to 6,573.2 hours at this point.
|
| I love Factorio for the same reasons I love SimCity. 6,573.2
| hours seems like a lot of time, but I've probably logged even
| more hours playing SimCity since 1989. (But much of that was
| actual productive time porting it to various platforms,
| testing, debugging, and optimizing the actual source code and
| user interface, etc.)
|
| https://github.com/SimHacker/MicropolisCore
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fVl4dGwUrA
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8snnqQSI0GE
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsxoZXaYJSk
| satvikpendem wrote:
| I know lots of people who play Factorio but for me, I guess it
| just feels too much like work? Whenever I play it, I get the
| distinct feeling that I could instead do the same thing but
| productively instead, such as by contributing to my OSS projects
| (sometimes, maybe even for profit instead). I never got into
| these types of programmatic games for precisely this reason but
| I'd like to understand other perspectives on this.
|
| The games I play instead are wholly unrelated to my work life,
| such as FPS or RPG ones, where there is a clear distinction
| between what I can do and what I want to do.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Fps: the US military thanks you for training for infantry in
| your spare time.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Funnily enough, I actually used to play America's Army 3, a
| game which explicitly was funded by the DoD. It was pretty
| fun, not gonna lie, much more tactical than many other
| shooters during that time.
| atrus wrote:
| It also convinced me to never join the army, because I was
| a bullet magnet haha.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Haha, I would never dream of actually getting shot at,
| lol.
| switchbak wrote:
| Operation Flashpoint (early version of ARMA) did that for
| me. You sneak around for an hour, then get shot in the
| face and it's all over. Imagine that, but for your life
| ... fuck war.
| ekidd wrote:
| I remember speaking to several of the people who worked on
| America's Army back around 2007, when Counter-Strike was
| all the rage. I think this was at the GDC.
|
| The people I spoke with were from the Army. And they found
| CS-style games _agonizing_ to watch. So many people running
| around with no plan, so much friendly fire, so many
| unrealistic tactics. You could practically see them
| shudder.
|
| They also had some people who worked in logistics. I
| remember one of them saying, "If the United States decides
| to invade a country, the software we wrote could calculate
| how much toilet paper we'd need."
| DonHopkins wrote:
| But by your own measure, you're not killing actual people,
| so why waste your time?
|
| Do you finally get it now?
| satvikpendem wrote:
| My work is not killing actual people, so your analogy is
| flawed.
| Taek wrote:
| Its just fun.
|
| "Okay wth, today we're going to make the entire base solar
| powered"
|
| When making software that's supposed to be used, you can't mess
| around that much. At the end of the day, someone has to use it
| and if its weird it'll be bad.
|
| But in Factorio? Nobody is using it so sure, make it bizzare.
| Change the rules, let yourself go. Don't test the design just
| send it.
|
| Bored? Too challenging? Don't bother finishing the design do
| something else.
| dartos wrote:
| > When making software that's supposed to be used, you can't
| mess around that much. At the end of the day, someone has to
| use it and if its weird it'll be bad.
|
| This makes me sad.
|
| You don't need to make software for mass appeal.
|
| Git is weird and bizarre (especially when initially
| released), but it's used and well loved.
| serf wrote:
| >This makes me sad.
|
| I gotta say, I think I agree.
|
| Maybe it's just rose-tinted-glasses, but I remember a time
| when software was split between "IBM-Corpo" culture, and
| zany SV/MIT/Caltech culture where people threw things at
| the wall and proceeded when stuff stuck.
|
| It kind of saddens me that it feels like it's now _only_
| IBM-Corpo, and everyone feels the need to be ever-
| productive and adhere to strict rules and schema.
|
| tl;dr : I remember when the fun Factorio game was
| qbasic.exe and no one blinked about it. We all had fun.
|
| (p.s. I love factorio now too)
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Bring back counterculture hackers
| tux3 wrote:
| What do you mean, back! There's more than ever! We're
| overflowing with talented peeps hacking on cool things,
| writing nice blogs publishing zines, and so forth and on!
|
| The formerly-counterculture conventions got so cult and
| big they grew a counter-counterculture of smaller places.
|
| Outside the walls of the AI SaaS grind. There be life.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Haha, any recommendations?
| helpfulclippy wrote:
| See if your area has any local makerspaces/hackerspaces
| or regional conferences like BSides.
| gessha wrote:
| The hacker culture is still there but hacker social media
| (unless carefully curated) is flooded with optimized
| content to the point where the cool stuff is hard to find
| and you only see the grifter techs.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Nah, they're still there, you merely have to know where
| to look. Most hackers I know eschew social media
| appearances.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Eric S Raymond deserves credit for pioneering the grifter
| tech exploitation of hacker culture.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Nods in Emacs.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| I don't understand, I can make whatever software I want, for
| whatever purpose, and it can still be impactful, depending on
| the user. It feels way more impactful than anything I can
| make in Factorio or similar.
| dasil003 wrote:
| Not everything is about impact.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Perhaps not, but my fun can in part be traced to impact.
| averageRoyalty wrote:
| Are the FPS games you play also about impact? You seem to
| have set yourself a different bar for 'fun' for this
| title (or genre?) alone.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Of course not. I think you misunderstand, if a game is
| too similar to real life, I am unsure why I should play
| it, whereas if it is fairly different, such as an FPS, it
| becomes much more fun for me. My question is primarily on
| the former, of why people seem to play a game that
| basically is like work but has no benefit for them. If
| it's fun for them, then that's fine, but my question
| more, _why is it fun for them in the first place?_ That
| 's really what I want to figure out.
| duckmysick wrote:
| > I can make whatever software I want, for whatever purpose
|
| Such freedom is extremely rare when you get paid for
| writing or maintaining software.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| It depends on whether you make software for a living or
| for OSS. One does not preclude the other, even if one is
| rarer. Given my situation, as I had initially stated, I
| am part of the latter. Even still, were I the former, I
| still don't get why one would work "for free" basically,
| especially in terms of a game versus real life.
| delichon wrote:
| This behavior is known as "play". Many of us find it
| stimulating. If it doesn't work for you you have my
| sympathy.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| I play, just not in the same terms as my work. For
| example, I shoot bad guys, but I also know people in the
| military who refuse to play FPS games.
| delichon wrote:
| When I asked Kovarik about this, he brought up Euro Truck
| Simulator, a wilfully mundane game about hauling cargo.
| The developers, who are friends of his, once told him
| that many of their most enthusiastic players are ...
| truckers. Truckers who spend their time off from their
| trucking jobs pretending to do more trucking ... a lot of
| people actually enjoy the work they do. They just don't
| always enjoy their jobs that much, because of all the
| things that get in the way of the work.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Good for them, fortunately I'm not a trucker.
| Animats wrote:
| There's a whole genre of such games.
|
| - Modern Farming. Has really good working models of
| expensive farming equipment. There are videos of real
| farmers playing it.
|
| - Lawnmower Simulator. Yes, really. Mow enough lawns, get
| a better mower.
|
| - Power Wash Simulator. Not kidding.[1]
|
| The first game in this category was probably the famous
| Desert Bus.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5G-2qTupCk
| DonHopkins wrote:
| If you like Power Wash Simulator, you'll LOVE the
| relaxing meditative idle game Paint Drying Simulator, and
| the exquisite organic fractal patina of its sequel, Paint
| Peeling Simulator. ;)
| kfrzcode wrote:
| I've found myself in playtime with Claude 3.5 lately; it
| scratches both itches very satisfyingly.
| highwind wrote:
| Just like any other video games, I like these type of
| management games because it's "work" without real-life
| consequences.
|
| I can play the min-max game without any unknowns that comes
| from real life management. Or I can destroy everything and mess
| everything up too.
|
| It's my escapism.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I submit that if "but I could be doing something productive
| instead" is a common thought when you are trying to have fun,
| that is the problem and not Factorio. It's perfectly ok to just
| have fun and not build something meaningful.
| uoaei wrote:
| Your implication that the definition of fun excludes
| meaningfulness is equally problematic.
| switchbak wrote:
| I don't think they're saying that per-se, I think they're
| saying: it's perfectly ok to both "have fun" AND "not build
| something meaningful" at the same time. I don't think you
| need to read in that having fun necessarily excludes doing
| something meaningful.
|
| While we're on the topic of assuming intent: that invented
| word "problematic" - problematic to whom? Something being a
| problem is almost always a subjective stance, not a
| universal truth as that word implies.
| uoaei wrote:
| problematic to the maintenance of a good-faith social
| contract
| satvikpendem wrote:
| What is this contract?
| satvikpendem wrote:
| I can have fun without needing to build anything meaningful
| at all though, but when the barriers get to close, that's
| when I start having an issue, in my experience. That's why I
| play games that don't replicate work in a sense.
| hluska wrote:
| I wasn't into video games for a long time for the exact reasons
| as you aren't into Factorio. The ones I was interested in
| always felt too much like a job.
|
| Minecraft with a kid was my gateway drug and I got into
| Factorio really quickly after. It's actually a really special
| game. There are elements of it that are practice for real world
| scenarios, but it is very relaxing, stress free and commitment
| free. It's a great game to sit down with for an hour after work
| to decompress and become normal again.
|
| It's also an incredibly fun game to share with a group of
| people on one device. That's something I haven't experienced
| since the 1990s, but it's really enjoyable to get together with
| a group and build together. It's an excellent cooperative game
| and is a great way to really get to know people. It's even more
| fun when you play it with people from a range of professions -
| one of my favourite Factorio groups is a bartender, a cook, a
| lawyer and a software developer. We think differently but when
| it all comes together, it's really neat.
|
| I understand that it's not for everyone and I'll be honest with
| you, I don't have nearly the reflexes for FPS so we're likely
| quite different in terms of the games we like. But I find it
| very relaxing and very enjoyable. It reminds me a lot of QBasic
| on an old Tandy - it's that same thrill of tinkering because
| tinkering is fun.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| I feel you, I used to play many single player games as well
| like Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, or Sly Cooper, over
| games that wanted me to expend significant brain power. They
| are still incredible games that don't have the same effect as
| Factorio does, they feel wholly different in their goals.
| SigmundA wrote:
| I feel the same way sometimes, it definitely closer to the same
| loop of plan execute refactor then many games. I do find my
| self getting wrapped up into then backing off because it does
| feel like work.
|
| But I like the fact that I can see it working in realtime, its
| just pretty, this machine I built that I can zoom into and see
| the smallest detail actually working.
|
| Wish software was more like that, a good debugger can get
| closer to that but way more clunky and poor performing than
| Factorio.
| zen928 wrote:
| Splitting from the experiences of others, I think the mentality
| somewhat comes down to your preference in what you seek to do
| in videogames and how you engage with them. In these types of
| sandbox building games, career developers naturally get
| somewhat of a "cheat" to becoming proficient quickly in that
| the mode of expressing logical sentiments will only ever be a
| few abstractions away from what you would do normally at your
| work, so you feel less constrained to building understanding of
| a system and can instead use the system as a way to output your
| ideas in a way faster than others might. In this sense, it's
| somewhat of a power fantasy that if you vs the average person
| were to play this game that you would most likely be able to
| clearly express your ideas and goals and be able to act on
| them, which makes it fun to go off the rails to show off "some
| crazy thing" you've made as a slight nod to your perceived
| skill being able to make these things.
|
| Consequently, that's why I'm so disinterested in learning these
| games. The discussion about them shifts into a thin one layer
| abstraction for other people to try to brag about their
| accomplishments and what they self injected as their experience
| instead of the game itself. This doesn't affect the gameplay,
| but it affects my perception of the game as a shallow vehicle
| for attention seekers more than it promotes the ideas of fun
| gameplay.
|
| That said, sometimes the style of gameplay resonates with a
| style of development you might have been interested in
| understanding more and can use it as a way to get motivation or
| inspiration for ideas. Automating pipelines, physics
| simulations, etc. I think it's always worth a shot on games
| that have notable recognition of quality to see if it jives
| with what you enjoy, but it's been the exception more than the
| rule in my case.
| instalabs wrote:
| > Whenever I play it, I get the distinct feeling that I could
| instead do the same thing but productively instead
|
| This is me, but extended to all games. I stopped playing games
| because I feel like I can always do something more productive
| with my time instead. If I really want to check out, I watch
| some TV instead. But games (especially modern ones) take too
| much work without any real reward.
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