From Doubt to Discovery: How One Game Changed My Gaming Perspective

One seemingly ordinary afternoon, I found myself staring at my PC screen, aimlessly scrolling through my Steam library. Nothing was sparking my interest—I’d been hopping between games without settling on anything that truly gripped me. I was searching for something new, something that could ignite that elusive spark of excitement. My gaze drifted through Steam’s vast, overwhelming catalog, and then I saw it: Factorio. With over 150,000 overwhelmingly positive reviews, this game practically demanded my attention. I’d heard the name in passing, but never bothered to give it a second thought—after all, I was a die-hard FPS and RPG fan. A game like this? It didn’t seem like it would be my thing. But curiosity got the best of me. With a flood of glowing feedback, how could I not take the plunge? Something about it felt different, like it was pulling me in, promising an experience that was far more than I had imagined.

First impressions:

Upon first loading up the game, I made my way over to the tutorial and loaded it up. I spawned into a world where I apparently crashed on my spaceship, on my way back to earth. I begin to follow the tutorial prompt of collection scraps, iron, and copper. I built my first few drill miners, stone furnaces, and inserters. to be honest, after around an hour in the tutorial, I decide to quit and start a regular sandbox world. The beginning of this world starts off the same as the tutorial. I build my first few basic recipes and build a small automated factory. I then build things such as steam engines, boilers, and offshore pumps to make my first electric power plant. I continue expanding and growing the factory, while having tons of fun just building everything. Little did I know this was just the beginning of my Factorio obsession.

A Few Hours Later:

After a few hours of mindlessly building my factory, I watch a few YouTube tutorials on research. Research is a way of learning new recipes for your factory, and is one of the core progression mechanics in Factorio. By crafting science packs and putting them into a “lab”, you can choose what recipes you want to research, and each recipe requires different types of science packs. I jump back into the game and start building my own science facility. At first everything was going smoothly, unlocking my first few basic recipes such as automation, green science packs, and different types of inserters. At this point my factory was getting pretty big and everything was coming along smoothly, or so I thought.

Pesky Aliens:

At this Moment, my factory has grown pretty big and that also goes for the amount of pollution it was creating as well. Yes, pollution is a pretty important aspect of this game as your aren’t alone in this planet. Factory has enemies in the form of Biters, Spitters, and worms. This pesky little creatures will attack your factory if your pollution reaches one of their nests. Now this is where weapons come in. In factory there is an extensive amount of weapons for you to use, but many come with research using military science packs which can be a bit grindy to craft for beginners such as myself. Of so, I used the basic SMG. I also built walls around my factory and placed turrets which would attack any enemies that got close to my precious factory. But as time goes on these enemies evolve, feeding off of your pollution to do so. this leads to enemies being much more pesky and tacky, and I can’t say I didn’t spend a good bit of time repairing my factory after a huge onslaught by these creatures.

The Grind

Something about how this game weaves research crafting, and defending your factory all into one thing made me completely addicted. I just had to grow and defend my factory as best as I could. I started automating basic things such as the crafting of certain recipes and research. Although it seemed like it would be a tedious process at first, I found myself really enjoying the process of placing everything down piece by piece. Even though there were plenty of YouTube tutorials and guides on how to automate everything in the game, I found that doing it by yourself (Even if its messy), makes for a much more rewarding experience. Yes, my factory was full of spaghetti as one would call a messy factory, it was functional and handmade by me, which made me much more proud of what I accomplished.

Final thoughts

Factorio has completely reeled me in Hook, Line, and Sinker. This game does a great job at showing you how much you can accomplish tarting off with nothing but a broken spaceship. From the moment that I opened up the game, I was completely mesmerized by the creative artstyle, music, and world that is factory. I haven’t even “beat” the game yet due to the sheer amount of content this game provides. Every Research you do, every recipe you craft feels meaningful and rewarding. I honestly cant recommend this game enough to every gamer out there. honestly, if there was one game I would want everyone to give a wholehearted try, it would be Factorio.