Captain Contraption's Chocolate Factory

For the record, I played this game quite a bit while as a playtest and as a demo. So I am very invested in it's success, at this point. Just so you know where my biases lie. This game is a bit unusual for a factory game due to the large amount of chaos present, and even encouraged. Unless you purposely invest budget into preventing spillage, you will probably lose some of your product on the more complex levels. This is surprisingly by design. Only 75% of ingredients need to reach the goal to pass any objective in the game, nothing will require a higher percentage than that. If that intended imperfection aspect bothers you, this might not be the game for you. (Although, I think a challenge run where you try to do all 100% efficiency would be fun too!) There's a bit of a trial and error element to building factories that might get repetitive for some people, but it never did for me. You sort of get a feel for how to set up more and more stuff in a row without testing the machine as you go along, but it never gets to the point where you can fully solve a level in your head without running the machine. Watching ingredients roll or fly around never stopped being entertaining to me, even after setting up a line of conveyors or cannons or the 50th time. I think that leaderboard hunters will have a lot of fun trying to find what the minimum budget for every level is. Making a complex design, then taking it down conveyor belt by conveyor belt, or replacing something expensive and powerful with something cheaper but more specialized scratches the same itch for me as optimizing designs in Polybridge. The grid placement somewhat limits possibilities though, I think that eventually every stage's optimal score will be achieved. But there will be a good bit of fun before that happens. On level 3 you will encounter a puzzle that expects you to combine a toasted almond with melted chocolate. This means, passing both ingredients through an oven, then getting them to touch each other. Surprisingly, I believe that this is one of if not the most complex instance of processing ingredients in the game. There is no long chain of combining X with X, X and X to make a certain desert. I think this focused design works to the game's benefit, it allows it to focus on introducing unique ingredient physics and objects, sometimes limiting you to a specific combination of one or two which pose a unique challenge. Speaking of objects, sometimes they can be a little tad bit unintuitive. It's almost a puzzle in itself sometimes to figure out how to use them effectively. Up to you whether this is a pro or a con. Considering how the puzzles allow for a wide variety of solutions, I can't imagine a playthrough getting stuck due to this, but it might make it a whole lot more challenging. The visuals are a bit hit or miss. Considering the two person team I can't hold it against them, I think they did a solid job all things considered, but there is a sort of discontinuity between the designs of different game objects. This is a big nitpick but I'm also not a huge fan of the stains on the blocks in particular, I get that it's kind of the point, to look messy, but it kind of bothers me having the factory looking so dirty. The music is a bop, but usually fades well into the background while you build, which I think fits the game well! Jordan Rees did a great job on it. I think it goes without saying that I recommend this game considering how much I wrote about it. Please buy it! I really want them to be able to keep making games :D