This is a pretty standard consideration for BTW players in automation, but I thought it cool to see it worked into this design. The conveyors don't allow you to move stuff upwards, which brings an element of having to minimize the vertical space your contraptions occupy. Beyond "Spacechem in 3D" I really like how gravity is being used as a design constraint, much like water flow in Minecraft. *Really* cool puzzle-based automation design. I've completed 4 "worlds" now, and am a couple of levels into the 4th (where you first gain access to the destructo grinder blocks and blockers). Infinifactory’s available on Your Steams! It’s a lot of fun! Try to make sure you’ve got a decent handful of friends playing too and keep in reasonably constant contact with them, gloating over your minor victories, seething with hatred over their complete overhauls.Stayed up way too late playing this last night so I can present some more impressions. It’s pretty fun to see something that probably shouldn’t work suddenly become just good enough. I’m making machines that purposefully break at first before eventually working themselves out, along with solutions that have weird unnecessary bits welded to them that just get lathed off at the end. I’ve decided to see how obnoxiously terrible I can make my work and still get the job done. I’ve moved on from chasing these limited ideas of the ideal machine. Often it’s impossible to complete the level both quickly and utilising the least amount of space, so maybe you’ll design two machines, a tiny intricate masterpiece of form over function, and a lumbering mammoth which cares little for its size as long as the job gets done. How big was the conveyor you made? How many cycles of production did the initial item-spawners have to go through before you completed your task? Your friends list says Dingus Assface managed to make his machines both smaller and quicker than yours, better clear your schedule. It’s fine that you’re able to quickly knock together something that can get the job done, but Infinifactory cleverly judges you on two metrics and then compares your scores with your Steam Friends List. A level begins as immediately daunting, but through continued trial and error they’re solvable with your growing suite of tools.Įfficiency is key. Later you’ll need to weld pieces of the same kind of block together, then different kinds of block, then multiple versions of the same creation sent to two different parts of the map, so on. You begin by placing conveyor belt pathways which transport blocks from one side of a room to another. It utilises the same kind of 3D movement and block-laying verbs as Minecraft, something basically handed out to kids like rubella vaccinations. Infinifactory, however, even in it’s pre-full-release state is immediately accessible. The interface was clunky and the tools were poorly labeled, so it wasn’t to be. Where Spacechem was wholly impenetrable, confusing and intimidating, it appealed to me (because the preceding three adjectives also describe my ideal sexual partners, hurr) due to this idea of creative puzzle solving. Rather than provide an inevitable single answer to a problem, Spacechem suggested a result, rolled out a set of tools, then had an expectation that you’d figure out your own way to get a working answer with elegance or by bashing at the fucking thing until maybe something falls out through sheer luck. You slap down paths to transport chemical elements around and try to change them into something useful. Infinifactory is the spiritual successor to Spacechem, a game synonymous with the idea puzzle-design-as-creative-expression. I do this for a charming set of galactic warmongers intending to encroach further on territory in the skies and in return I’m permitted to remain un-departed. Where my nan would apply chopped egg and butter to bread, I design production lines, efficiency increasing with each iteration. The prestigious position takes place during whatever spare time I have. I have managed to maintain the family tradition of nocturnal bar-work, and I also recently began a job in a factory-of-sorts. My rented house is roughly the same size as hers, but I have the benefit of it not having been built in Slough.
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