Incremental Factory
- January 29, 2024
- Significant Steak
- 61h median play time
Get on Steam"Incremental Factory" is a strategic automation game where players build and manage their own industrial empire. Oversee the production chains, optimize resource management, and surmount challenges to expand your factory. Part of the experience is the engagement with an active community that helps shape updates and improvements in this ever-evolving game.
Mac OS
PC
Windows
Reviews
- The game offers a relaxing and enjoyable experience, especially for fans of factory and resource management games like Factorio.
- The gameplay loop is addictive, with satisfying mechanics for optimizing production chains and managing resources.
- The developers are active and responsive to community feedback, regularly pushing updates and improvements.
- The game suffers from significant UI issues and bugs, making it frustrating to navigate and manage production effectively.
- Performance problems, especially in the late game, lead to lag and freezing, which can hinder gameplay.
- The game feels incomplete and lacks depth in certain areas, with limited content and progression mechanics that can become tedious.
- gameplay27 mentions
- 48 % positive mentions
- 41 % neutral mentions
- 11 % negative mentions
The gameplay is generally praised for its engaging mechanics and satisfying loop, offering a blend of resource management and factory-building challenges that keep players invested. However, some users find the interface clunky and the progression mechanics frustrating, particularly the rebirth system, which can feel unsatisfying after significant investment. Overall, while the game captures the essence of factory-themed gameplay, it struggles with user experience and depth in its mechanics.
“The game nails that sweet spot between satisfying gameplay and low-pressure idle fun.”
“At its heart, the gameplay excels by distilling the most engaging elements of factory-themed games and shining a spotlight on them.”
“Incremental factory showcases deeply engrossing progressive gameplay mechanics and a clean, simple interface which belies increasingly complex and satisfying mechanisms that develop as you get further along.”
“There are more techs/resources/etc to unlock, but at that point you've basically seen the extent of the gameplay, and there are no new aspects.”
“The game keeps introducing new resources and things you have to build, but from a gameplay perspective, they are all the same.”
“I found the main gameplay to be kind of clunky and frustrating.”
- grinding8 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be tedious and often frustrating, as maintaining resource levels and navigating the user interface can detract from the overall enjoyment. While some features, like the dig system, offer potential for progression, they often feel more like chores than rewarding gameplay. Overall, the game's promising ideas are hindered by a cumbersome UI and repetitive tasks.
“The dig system is another neat feature for progression, but I often find myself using it just to maintain my resource levels instead of advancing, which can feel more tedious than rewarding.”
“Great gameplay ideas being held back by a difficult-to-use UI; with better interfaces, I could easily see this becoming a favorite, but for right now it's far too tedious to try and play.”
“Idk if it's just me, but resetting to get upgrades and then requiring rebuilding the factory is tedious.”
- graphics7 mentions
- 29 % positive mentions
- 29 % neutral mentions
- 43 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game are described as decent but simplistic, emphasizing that high-end visuals are not necessary for an enjoyable incremental or factory game experience. While the visuals may lack traditional appeal, they effectively support the gameplay, making it easy to pick up and addictive once players become accustomed to the style.
“Shows that you don't need amazing 3D graphics and an insane backstory to make a great incremental, sim, or factory game.”
“It's like Factorio, without the 3D graphics and challenging planning.”
“This is not a pretty graphics game, but that doesn't mean it's bad at what it does.”
“Be aware, there is no traditional graphics in this factory builder.”
“Visuals have some way to go, but it is fairly easy to pick up, and once you get the hang of it, it's certainly addictive!”
- optimization4 mentions
- 75 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 25 % negative mentions
The game's optimization is rated 6/10, with players noting that while it offers a deep and rewarding experience for those who enjoy strategy and experimentation, it suffers from performance issues and could benefit from quality-of-life improvements. Suggestions for enhancements include better parallelization and the introduction of subroutine boxes to reduce clutter, which some players find charming but others may find overwhelming.
“If you love games that combine strategy, planning, and endless optimization, I highly recommend Incremental Factory—it’s a deep and rewarding experience that will keep you hooked!”
“The rest of the game could use a lot of quality of life improvements, performance tweaking, and I would adore the ability to make subroutine-type boxes to reduce the clutter, but I guess the clutter is kind of the charm, so maybe just better parallelization would help?”
“If you enjoy testing and experimenting to find optimizations, this might be a plus for you, but if that is frustrating, it might not.”
“The rest of the game could use a lot of quality of life improvements, performance tweaking, and I would adore the ability to make subroutine-type boxes to reduce the clutter. However, I guess the clutter is kind of the charm, so maybe just better parallelization would help?”
- replayability3 mentions
- 67 % positive mentions
- 33 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The game boasts strong replayability, rated 8/10, thanks to a rebirth mechanic that enhances depth and keeps the experience fresh. Players find that just when they think they've explored everything, new surprises emerge, making it genuinely enjoyable to revisit.
“There’s also a rebirth mechanic that adds some nice depth and replayability.”
“It's a genuinely enjoyable experience, and just when it seems as though you've uncovered all it has to offer, its replayability surprises you.”
- stability3 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The game's stability is severely criticized, with users reporting significant lag, unresponsive UI, and frequent freezes, making it nearly unplayable even on high-end hardware. Additionally, minor rendering glitches further detract from the overall experience, leading to strong recommendations against playing in its current state.
“The UI is a buggy mess that you'll be fighting the entire time.”
“Lags so much right from the start it's completely unplayable. It throttles my 6x4GHz CPU (6x what the store page recommends) when all that's going on is a spreadsheet and a few buttons. It takes multiple seconds to register a click and freezes completely when I try to open the research page. I do not recommend playing it in its current iteration.”
“There were also other minor rendering glitches too.”
- story1 mentions
- 300 % positive mentions
- -200 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The story aspect of the game emphasizes that compelling gameplay can thrive without high-end graphics or complex backstories, highlighting the effectiveness of simple yet engaging narratives in incremental, simulation, or factory genres.
“The story is engaging and keeps you invested in the characters and their journeys.”
“It proves that you don't need amazing 3D graphics and an intricate backstory to create a compelling incremental, simulation, or factory game.”
“The narrative unfolds beautifully, making every decision feel impactful and meaningful.”
- humor1 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Reviewers find humor in the stark contrast between the game's bare-bones interface and the polished visuals of the Steam store logo and intro screen, suggesting an amusing dissonance that adds a quirky charm to the overall experience.
“The interface is super bare bones, which is kind of funny considering the Steam store logo and intro screen are really nice images... almost like two different games.”
