I’ve learned a lot of lessons since college. One big one is that I have to treat Factorio like alcohol. It’s fun, great for hanging out with your friends, and don’t consume it during your lunch break or else you’re going to have a very awkward conversation with your boss.

In case you haven’t read my multiple other posts describing the game (or played it yourself), you build factories to make science to research technologies to build better factories. For the minds of me and people like me, it’s literally addictive and needs to be treated with the same respect that we treat recreational drugs, like alcohol (or at least caffeine). The problem is that Factorio is an eldritch time fast forward button. You open a game at 6PM, blink, and it’s 7PM. On the next day.

There are many games that are like this, to some extent. The concept overlaps strongly with my concept of “spreadsheet games” from a previous post. The Civilization series references this in its motto, “One More Turn” – it also has an infamous reputation for sucking up time.

But Factorio is really, really good at this, to the point of being actively dangerous. There’s a canonical reason why: Factorio doesn’t give you a good moment to close mental loops. You notice your factory is low on iron, so you need to build a smelting array, but since you’re going to build a smelting array you need to build a new mine to feed it, because the old one’s running low on free space for mining drills, but the best looking mining patch is a ways away, in biter territory, so now it’s time to to go bug hunting and in order to do that with how strong they’ve gotten you’re going to need to build a tank and that requires engine units which use up a whole lot of iron to build, and hey, doesn’t it look like my factory is low on iron?

The factory must grow!

Imagine a gear that’s misaligned,¹ and every time you nudge it, it gets closer and closer to perfect. And immediately when it’s aligned to your satisfaction, another shinier and more complex gear gets slotted in, clearly part of the same puzzle, also slightly misaligned. Your brain wants to close the loop, and the loop will never be closed. It’s directly engages the part of your brain that solves problems, which for me is powerful enough to keep me in my desk chair for far longer than I’ve actually set aside for gaming.

I’ve found some good solutions to limit may Factorio consumption. One is to play when I know something is guaranteed to interrupt me in a couple hours, like if someone is going to give me a phone call. Another option is to limit myself to “social Factorio”, like by starting a multiplayer world with my friends and playing once every week or two. But the most effective solution for me has been replacing Factorio with a healthier substance.

Against the Storm: The Nicorette of spreadsheet games

Specifically, the game I’ve used is “Against the Storm”. It’s a roguelite city builder – roguelite meaning that your progress resets after each run but you get to keep some bonuses from run to run. For a city builder, this means that instead of building one gigantic metropolis (or gigantic factory), you build one settlement at a time until that specific settlement reaches a level of self sufficiency, then move on to a new settlement with new bonuses in hand.

Moment to moment, Against the Storm is not quite as engaging and enjoyable for me as Factorio is, but at the end of playing a round I feel both energized and satisfied. Plus, it’s only been a couple hours. On most days, playing Against the Storm makes more sense. It’s also very fun, and leaves me in a better position to have the rest of my day. Factorio still makes for an incredible rager when I’m in a safe position to blow the next 25 hours of my life. But as they say, enjoy responsibly.

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This is the final post of my 30-day Inkhaven residency for November. Going forward, I’m planning to switch to one post a week, so I have more time to devote to my YouTube channel, my day job, and my Factorio games other responsibilities. More on this to come next Sunday.

Coming soon: Reflections on Inkhaven