Snacktorio

I'm a sucker, I see a game that ends in "io" and I buy it immediately. I would compare this far less to factor"io" and more to the types of factory games found on itch".io". If you are looking for Factorio, this is not it. If you are looking for Satisfactory, Dyson Sphere Program, Shapez (1+2), Alchemy Factory, etc. This is not it. But, this game does stand on its own amid a sea of factory games and I'm enjoying it. If I had to compare the core loop it's similar to Mindustry (without enemies) but in a Terraria-like engine. A key consideration for this game is that it plays very much like a puzzle game, you get a series of levels and have to design factories to feed monsters, then it's on to the next arena, starting from scratch each level. It's similar to Railgrade in that regard. The levels are adequately paced for beginners, each level builds on the knowledge of the previous level, but can feel quite tedious for genre veterans. I appreciate that the dev didn't commit the cardinal sin of factory games and included easy ways to make sure your factory is running optimally at correct ratios, the ratios aren't obfuscated or hidden as they are in other factory games. It's very polished. Starting with the good: The art direction and in game explanations are exceptional. There is a lot of high quality art direction that you simply don't spend much time with, i.e. the illustrations of the imps in the machines. You can tell the dev cared about making a polished game with a story and a plot. Including a campaign that you move through level by level, solving problems, uncovering mystery, with a few funny sci-fi and cooking nerd easter eggs thrown in. It's a beautiful intersection of many things I love. (imagine Escoffier cooking with the spice melange.) This game was made for me, and I appreciate it. The bad: The beginning of the game is heavily, heavily tedious. Game mechanics are introduced at a snails pace. The first island and most of the second is repetitious, almost mind numbingly so. Though that is partially my fault as a factory game veteran for my tendency to overbuild factories, stressing myself to make 100 dishes per minute at perfect ratio when I literally only needed 10. If you focus on the mission objective without losing yourself foodmaxxing, then the pacing flows much better. I do recommend this game, with a caveat that veterans just move through the beginning islands as quickly as possible. The third island is where the game starts opening up and gives you real challenges to solve. It is here where I write this review. I do think it's a better game design choice to hold the players hand, as not everyone is 1000spm megabase brained, but I had to chug through this to get to the part where I'm enjoying it.