Factory Town

After unlocking all 32/32 achievements in about 61 hours, here are my thoughts of the game: This is quite an addictive factory builder game, with simple mechanics and straight-forward user interface. One feature that I liked is that the player is not getting punished for slow production, just the happiness indicator drops, which can be then easily raised up when the town needs are satisfied, by delivering products (water, food, clothes, items) to the town's distribution centers. The happiness is needed to upgrade houses and expand the population. So there is no rush to keep an eye on everything all the time. No enemies or hostile entities, so the player's work is preserved and they can focus solely on expansion towards achieving the goals. The underground pipe system (fluids and mana) is very easing, as it allows transferring certain types of goods throughout the map without difficulty. I would also note that the soundtrack is great and creates a calm atmosphere while playing the game. However, there are several things that make me feel the game isn't perfect: - Non-realism. Maybe the game was designed that way, but I felt uncomfortable that buildings and workers can be immediately placed, moved or deleted in a blink of an eye, without any animation of some sort. While it is quite convenient, it feels like a sandbox to me and not a live town that I'm building. In addition to that, physics is not enforced, and you can create bridges without any support, or place scaffolds/buildings and delete their underlying support, which will result in them levitating in the air. That hurt my eyes. - There is no diagonal movement of any sort. Even if there is a boat on the open sea, or an airship, they will still move in vertical and horizontal lines instead of diagonally. This is very inefficient and drives me crazy. - When a conveyor belt has a right angle turn, it splits into two separate belts without corner connection between them (as opposed to chutes and rails). Also, objects can be inserted or extracted from buildings at any point, and this is very unaesthetic. - As for the game itself, there is some repetitiveness in the late game, where every product needs a crystal (mana, fire, water, earth or air), and then you need to recharge the depleted crystal. I found myself building the same layout dozens of times. - In the build or research menus, there isn't much in-game explanation of what the building does or how it works. I had to go to the game's wiki to find more info (which is very limited). In contrast, I think Captain of Industry is far superior than Factory Town in terms of realism and immersion, although it can be more stressful (but very satisfying when you succeed). All in all, I still think Factory Town is a game worth playing, as it is calm and simple and getting the achievements is quite satisfying. I would give it 7/10.