[STEAM] Substructure is a Stardew Valley-inspired factory sim that takes one of Factorio's hardest and best mods and turns it into a dizzying, planet-wide game of its own

[Steam 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

(Image credit: Hooded Horse) As your automation becomes more complex, the elevators themselves can become their own mega-factories, yoyo-ing between levels to take advantage of the differing environmental conditions. Certain catalysts will speed up production – sunlight, for example, speeds up the production of the plants in your fields, while darkness will slow it down – so managing exactly where your elevators are and at what thresholds they move (all while balancing where their output goes) is crucial to pushing substructure's efficiency.

By the time just three planetary levels have offered up their secrets, my head is spinning. I'm being guided through Substructure's opening hours at breakneck pace, admittedly, but there are already so many moving parts, all reliant on so many other systems. Despite that, studio co-founders Mike Donoghue and Stu Taylor say they have to fight the urge to add things that are "too complicated."

Instead, the aim is to gradually introduce players to more and more complex ideas. Guiding them directly through the experience isn't an option – the team's internal mantra is "'all game'", the idea that nothing should be interrupting the player on their own journey to understanding. Mastery might be a long time coming, but the belief is that that friction – catalysts, time-sensitive resources, the game's sheer verticality – is all a necessary part of the game.

"You need friction for it to be interesting," says Taylor, as Donoghue doubles down: "I think humans derive inherent satisfaction from solving things and feeling like they've achieved something. We really believe in this idea of 'sense of accomplishment by playing', where indirect guidance is where you get the highest sense of accomplishment. Our games work best to some extent when they are maddening you."

Keep your own play ticking over like in Substructure with our

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

ranking, and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

recommendations!

[/url]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up