Check out Factorio - A resource management/automation game (Demo available)
"Factorio is a game in which you build and maintain factories. You will be mining resources, researching technologies, building infrastructure, automating production and fighting enemies. Use your imagination to design your factory, combine simple elements into ingenious structures, apply management skills to keep it working and finally protect it from the creatures who don't really like you."
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http://www.factorio.com
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Factorio Trailer
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Screenshots
Launch Gallery More Information
Current State of the Game
Factorio is currently in alpha. That said, the game in its current state is extremely well polished and more importantly fun to play. Updates are frequent and the developers are involved with the community and have implemented many suggestions from current players.
Modding
Factorio has a very, very active modding community. There are already several huge overhaul mods as well as many mods that simply enhance information availability or make some tasks easier for users. Sometimes these mods are integrated into the core game. The game is not too difficult to mod, especially if you are experienced with LUA, but there are currently very few tutorials to get you started if you have little to no experience.
Multiplayer
Yes, there is multiplayer! However, it is peer-to-peer, so there are no dedicated servers: this means that you have to either tell others your IP (currently only works with IPv4, IPv6 support is still in development) so if you aren't able to forward ports, you will need to find someone who can to host. Also, don't expect to be player with people on different continents - lag is a really big issue and desyncing games are still a hastle. However, once past all of that, multiplayer is extraordinarily fun.
Near Future
Currently the community is holding its breath in anticipation of the .12 update, which will bring many, many new features as well as optimizations. It is expected some time in July, after which the developers plan to pursue putting the game on Steam.
My thoughts
So far I have sunk ~60 hours into this game after buying it a week ago. The gameplay is incredibly addicting and even without mods there is a huge amount of re-playability. The learning curve is a bit steep but if you keep alt-tabbing to the wiki for recipes and comments on what items are used for, you pick it up quickly. If the trailer interested you, I recommend trying the demo.
Currently the game is priced at €15, but that will probably go up after going up on Steam. I highly recommend this game!
Join the Discussion
In a similar vein, there's also Big Pharma, where instead of surviving on a hostile unknown land you're busy trying to produce the most profitable drugs. Quite complex, but apparently the tutorial eases you into the mechanics.
It's in early Beta at the moment.
I might buy Big Pharma as well, I learned about it after I purchased Factorio. Big Pharma looks interesting because it seems to have a much bigger element of space utilization as well, whereas Factorio gives you basically infinite room (you can make maps that require better space efficiency though.)
This is a really neat game. It takes a lot of intricate planning to transport everything where you need it to go.
My first factory was a complete rat-nest. I haven't gotten around to making a new game, but I'm going to be much more careful panning it out this time.