Alchemy Factory

About

Alchemy Factory is a single player and multiplayer casual strategy game. It was developed by D5 Copperhead and was released on December 11, 2025. It received very positive reviews from players.

‌Alchemy Factory‌A medieval sandbox blending alchemy, automation & shopkeeping! As a magic apprentice, build your empire of automated production lines crafting potions, metals, and jewels. Rise from a humble shop owner to an industry-dominating alchemy magnate! ‌Self-Running Laboratories‌Automate herb grinding, essence extraction, elixir distillation – even transmute ore into Philosopher's S…

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92%

Audience ScoreBased on 976 reviews

gameplay44 positive mentions

story4 negative mentions

Unique small-scale factory building with intuitive blueprint and building mechanics that enable highly creative and compact designs.
Engaging and satisfying blend of factory automation and shop management, giving a sense of purpose to the production and selling loop.
Well-paced progression with a massive research tree and numerous upgrades keeps long-term play addictive and rewarding.

Lack of polish and usability issues such as clunky UI, difficult building controls, and some unfinished mechanics negatively impact early gameplay experience.
Late-game automation can become tedious due to space constraints, grind-heavy progression, and requiring repeated factory redesigns.
Frequent crashing and performance problems reported by some players, along with occasional bugs and missing quality-of-life features.

gameplay
107 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
41%
55%
4%
The gameplay is praised for its solid, well-balanced mechanics that blend factory-building and store simulation genres with unique features like alchemy and automation, providing a satisfying and addictive progression loop. While some players find learning curves steep and certain mechanics like conveyor belts or interfaces occasionally clunky or under-polished, the overall depth, creativity, and continuous developer improvements make it a standout and fresh experience in its genre. However, better tutorials and quality-of-life enhancements could improve accessibility and reduce some frustration.
- “It's amazing, very close to perfect. This game is almost infinite in the amount of things to do, the mechanics are grounded and keep you invested while gradually increasing in complexity.”
- “The gameplay loop is well done and makes you feel like you earn every bit of progress.”
- “Mechanically, this game deserves to be considered among the top automation games on the market in my view.”
- “Good game, crappy mechanics. I like the idea but don't think I understand the mechanics much, so I don't recommend this game to anyone. I gave it a fair shot and I do like the game but can't figure out the concept.”
- “The gameplay itself, while tedium can be managed automatically later on, is still tedious at best and downright overwhelming at worst.”
- “The conveyor belt, which is a basic item in the game, is absolutely messed up. It has a snapping mechanic and it will change its shape without you being able to do anything with it. Sometimes you can't run 2 parallel belts because they will just merge.”
graphics
48 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
38%
56%
6%
The game features a charming, cozy, and colorful fantasy art style that distinguishes it from typical gritty industrial factory builders, with visually pleasing graphics and warm lighting enhancing its inviting atmosphere. While the overall aesthetic and factory designs are praised for their uniqueness and appeal, some users note occasional roughness or simplicity in character models and minor graphical bugs. Performance can be demanding for some GPUs, but the pleasing visuals and engaging factory layouts contribute strongly to the game's appeal.
- “The art style and overall vibe are insanely good — it looks nothing like the usual spreadsheet-with-conveyors factory games, and that’s a huge win.”
- “Cozy visuals and warm lighting make even industrial setups feel inviting.”
- “Finally found a factory game with a colourful fantasy aesthetic!!”
- “Graphics look bad even on max settings; the tutorial is nonexistent, so you'd basically know the same amount with or without it.”
- “Just a shame the graphics are very cheap on people and environment.”
- “Also heavy drag on GPU for asset flip level graphics.”
story
36 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
8%
81%
11%
The game lacks a cohesive overarching story, relying heavily on repetitive quests focused on item production and tier progression, which some players find tedious and limiting. While the medieval setting suggests potential for more narrative depth, the current quest and progression systems are seen as cumbersome and sometimes softlock gameplay. However, the factory and automation mechanics, combined with a deep tech tree and quest variety, offer steady progression for players who enjoy this genre despite the sparse story element.
- “The tech tree is deep, and there are build quests available if that strikes your fancy.”
- “The medieval setting begs for a few quests or alternate storylines to break up the day-to-day routine.”
- “The art style is great (except customer models) and there are constant quests and a very impactful progression system to push you forward.”
- “No real story other than quests telling you to make the next tier of item to level up.”
- “May get better as the game progresses but I can't find the motivation to tough it out without something to do it for - there is no overarching goal in the game, no story to follow, etc.”
- “The central quest system needs to be reworked.”
music
31 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
10%
64%
26%
The music in the game is widely criticized for being repetitive, basic, and occasionally grating, with a notably small soundtrack that quickly becomes tiresome. Significant controversy arose due to unauthorized use of copyrighted tracks, leading to the game’s temporary removal from Steam, though the developers have since replaced the problematic music. While some players see potential for improvement, many recommend turning off the in-game music entirely due to its poor quality and lack of variety.
- “All of the songs except one are good, in my opinion.”
- “Graphics are good, music is good, and gameplay is good.”
- “I sincerely hope that the developers find early success and can put some money towards commissioning some solid magic/fantasy music, because in a game like this the music and atmosphere can make all the difference.”
- “Sound design is almost entirely nonexistent at present and the music tracks are slightly grating.”
- “Music is bad, playlist is too small, after playing 50+ hours the same melodies make me feel sick.”
- “Regarding it being temporarily removed from Steam: apparently, the developers commissioned external music that turned out to be copyrighted, but the truth is that it was the most mediocre part of the game… very plain, almost as if pulled from an AI.”
grinding
30 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Grinding in the game is widely described as tedious and overwhelming, especially in the early stages before automation unlocks. Manual tasks like fueling furnaces, resource gathering, and item management become repetitive and slow progress, making building and scaling feel cumbersome compared to similar factory simulators. While automation and advanced gameplay can alleviate some grind, many players find the overall experience unnecessarily complex and fatiguing.
- “The gameplay itself, while tedium can be managed automatically later on, is still tedious at best and downright overwhelming at worst.”
- “Tl;dr - quite needlessly complex and tedious, far more than other factory games.”
- “2) Manual upkeep fatigue: manually refilling the beginning of production chains is fine for the early game, but it becomes tedious as you progress.”
optimization
25 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
24%
64%
12%
Optimization in this game is a mixed experience: while the core gameplay allows for creative and satisfying factory layouts with ample room for efficiency improvements, performance can suffer especially in late game with high entity counts, even on powerful hardware. The game benefits from ongoing optimization updates and is praised for smooth machine/item flow and multithreading, but some players report high resource usage and occasional bugs. Overall, it offers deep optimization potential for dedicated players, though further performance refinements would enhance the experience.
- “The machines and items flow very smoothly and don't suffer from performance issues in the slightest.”
- “Very polished, optimized and tons of quality-of-life features for an early access game.”
- “Wow, I randomly stumbled on this game from a YouTube review of the demo and tracked the release. This game seriously delivers. Alchemy Factory really scratches the industrial/factory building itch. Resources are basically unlimited so there's no need to worry about sourcing new resource nodes to continue, and progression is more focused on how optimized and efficient your layout is.”
- “Yeah, I don't know what kind of optimization this developer thinks they are doing, but my new Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB runs at 100% on this game, and that is at the very start when I only have 2 tables making planks and mortar just 10 minutes into the game.”
- “I highly suggest the developer work on optimization or the game will end up being dead on arrival when fully released.”
- “Either completely unoptimized or something else is going on.”
stability
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
67%
The game demonstrates overall good stability with minimal crashes and only occasional minor glitches or freezes, which are actively being addressed. While some users note buggy quality-of-life mechanics and challenges typical of early access, the gameplay remains smooth and polished for an indie title.
- “Fairly bug-free from the 64 hours played so far.”
- “For an indie game that launched early access 8 days ago, it runs great and has a large amount to do despite a few bugs.”
- “System requirements are low and it runs very smoothly with no glitches, hitches, or lag.”
- “The game is a buggy mess right now with many quality of life mechanics present in other games missing here. Stay away until something similar to void storage (from Satisfactory) is implemented at the very least.”
- “It's in early access so there are some glitches, like the occasional freeze, but I haven't had it crash, just freeze for up to 10 seconds. It always recovers though.”
- “However, as everyone says, it is still pretty buggy.”
atmosphere
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
75%
25%
The game is praised for its cozy and charming atmosphere, blending factory and shop simulation elements with a beautiful art style. Reviewers highlight the presentation's appeal and suggest that enhanced music could further elevate the immersive experience.
- “This game combines a very cozy atmosphere, a factory game, and a shop sim game into something truly beautiful!”
- “I love the art style and atmosphere and I don't even know why.”
- “Charming presentation and atmosphere.”
humor
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is driven by playful mechanics like unlocking catapults and cannons, which add a consistently amusing and entertaining twist to gameplay. Rather than focusing solely on optimization, players are encouraged to create funny and creative contraptions, enhancing the game's lighthearted charm.
- “You unlock things like catapults to fling items around (this stays hilarious forever) and cannons (an improvement on catapults in basically every way).”
- “Don't bother trying to build an optimized factory; you can do it, it's possible, it's just that you can use catapults to make some pretty funny constructions.”
emotional
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The aspect "emotional" does not appear to be addressed in the provided user text, which focuses on a gameplay mechanic involving conveyor belt connections rather than emotional impact.
monetization
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The monetization is well-aligned with the game's factory simulation theme, delivering a satisfying experience without feeling intrusive.