Pico Factory

by caranha
Overall★★★★★★★★★★4.09
Fun★★★★★★★★★★4.00
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.58
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.49
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.71
Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.27
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.62
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★57%
Build a factory within 4 minutes. Make as much money as possible, or the raddest factory you can imagine!

Keys:

Arrow Keys: Move the building cursor
X, V or M: Change the selected tool
Z, C or N: Use the selected tool

About:
This game was developed using the PICO-8 fantasy console. If you like it, let me know your high-score in the comments. If you really like it, send me a screenshot of your factory!

Update:
Bummed with the controls? Check the Post-Compo version!

Comments40

NuSan
NuSan12 Dec 2016, 11:38
I love those kinda of game. At first it was pretty difficult, but then I realy liked it. The only part I dislike is the menu control. I think combining a button and arrow keys would have made it much easyer. Keep up the good work
caranha
caranhaauthor12 Dec 2016, 14:32
Thank you! Yeah, the controls definitely could use some improvement.
wrexialmt
wrexialmt12 Dec 2016, 14:33
I don't usually like puzzle games, but hey i managed :D http://imgur.com/a/Z5nJd

That being said, as nusan said before the control scheme is "horrible" for pc, but this is gonna go on my pocket chip for sure! :D
Darkhaul
Darkhaul12 Dec 2016, 14:44
Love it, nearly did a factory style game myself for this jam but decided against it in the end. But this is brilliant, scrolling through the menu is my biggest problem with it but thats very minor. All in all a fantastic game.
drakekin12 Dec 2016, 14:48
Bakeries don't seem to work, but it was very fun. Just spam juicers.
caranha
caranhaauthor12 Dec 2016, 14:53
Drake: What's wrong with the bakeries? Can you send me a screenshot? (hint, they output up, not right)
x1212
x121212 Dec 2016, 18:07
Great game!
I had a few problems remembering the controlls but overall it works really well.
I just love how it's nearly the same basic idea as we used for our entry, but with much better gameplay.
SamuelSousa
SamuelSousa12 Dec 2016, 19:10
That was a lot a fun finding ways to exploit my little factory:) Manage to get 6000$

The controls fooled every time... Not used to that set up.

Great Entry!
slam_nine12 Dec 2016, 20:01
I liked it a lot. Especially the money graph at the end. It's really interesting to watch afterwards how the score went up and down as the game progressed. :)
TijmenTio12 Dec 2016, 23:36
Wow super cool! I like systems.
Tried figuring out the best strategy, got around $2000 and thought that was good.
Then saw here in the comments this guy that got $6000.
That got me dedicated.
So I got....
$8774!!!!!
But it was by just making bread machines :( Which is such a shame.
Are the bread machines TOO good? What's your highscore?
Loved the graph at the end btw :) I think graphs make people happy.
Sparked9913 Dec 2016, 01:32
So good I bookmarked it. :D
caranha
caranhaauthor13 Dec 2016, 01:42
>> Tio:
8774! I'm glad you liked it!

Yeah, bread is OP right now. Theoretically, bread makes $2/s, juice makes 10$/2, and the assembler makes 15$/s. However, when setting up the prices, I forgot to take into account that bread only requires 1 tile, the juicer requires 8 tiles, and the assembler requires 12 tiles.

Balancing this kind of game is difficult! Expect a bread nerf in the post-compo version :-)

My personal highscore is around 5k-ish, but someone else sent me a screenshot of 11k. I am putting the screenshots I get on the game page, check it out!
tomdeal
tomdeal13 Dec 2016, 11:34
Very well done! Once I got a hold of the controls (a dedicated destroy input and a go back selection would be great), I had a really good time playing the game. Although I think my 1484 highscore may not be that good...
thomz12
thomz1213 Dec 2016, 11:34
Very cool! reminded me a lot of Factorio (that is a good thing!). I like the pixel art. Controls are one of the points that might need improvement. Well done!
zzapp13 Dec 2016, 11:40
Cool little factory sim, really fun, although the controls really take some getting use to.
Yami no tenshi
Yami no tenshi13 Dec 2016, 12:11
Good game concept !

The bakery makes other things a bit useless though, but you already noticed it. :)

With more balance it will become really pleasant, trying to figure out which strategy can be the best.
erikiene
erikiene13 Dec 2016, 12:24
The fact that machines have different output directions makes it more difficult, i liked that!
mrhill13 Dec 2016, 17:50
Really loved the look of it
springogeek13 Dec 2016, 21:20
Seriously addictive! Made it to $1424 in the end. I'd have liked being able to just overwrite a tile without needing to cycle the menu. I agree that holding and moving would have been beneficial. Nice job!
rogual
rogual13 Dec 2016, 21:48
This is really nice! Satisfying and addictive. The sprites are great too. It was very clear how it worked and what to do.

Obviously you didn't have time to do much balancing (you can afford all the good stuff pretty quickly) and the controls could use some work. But I had a lot of fun anyway.

The graph at the end is a nice touch!
Geckoo1337
Geckoo133713 Dec 2016, 22:20
Nice project under pico - nice aesthetic. Well done ++
Trasevol_Dog14 Dec 2016, 02:01
I loved this! My few complaints are: menu navigation is not great, different output direction can be confusing but make you need all the tiles so ok, although that means you use the menu a lot. Music would have been nice. :)
Very solid entry nonetheless!
qbicfeet14 Dec 2016, 16:14
I love it, gets really addictive really quickly and makes you spend a lot of time outside of the game trying to come up with new configurations to try out. Hope you keep working on this post-jam.
Sean14 Dec 2016, 20:01
This is mechanically pretty solid, but unfortunately, I personally did not have the patience to find this game fun! As a couple people have mentioned, the controls could definitely stand to be improved. It might have been worth it to just go for the dev-mode mouse input and forego all the tedious cursor movement.
Notester
Notester15 Dec 2016, 10:46
This is really cool! :D I've only gotten 1536 (so far), there's a ton of panic when it comes to creating a factory, I enjoy it though.. >w<
Remicy16 Dec 2016, 10:47
This is super fun!! I can't stop playing this!
dv4916 Dec 2016, 12:45
I spend the most time in your game among others yet :)
Really like solid style and how you made up a simulation of a fictional console.
But connection with the theme is weak from my point.
(My top is 6633)
Alexbrainbox17 Dec 2016, 00:56
This was way more fun than it had any right to be.

(1297 on the first try!)
SamH
SamH17 Dec 2016, 12:48
Lol $10078 :-) http://i.imgur.com/qfuWBdf.png

Good mechanics, nice pixel art, and of course like everyone else I yelled at the tile selection controls! But it&rsquo;s pretty addictive, a great entry.
erik27 Dec 2016, 07:44
Super awesome that you made a Pico8 game! And super impressive that it is one of the best I've played so far.

The four minute limit is an interesting balance. I thought I would hate it, but it does keep the games short which I think helps keep things fun. I ended up replaying a lot trying to get really good builds, instead of optimizing a single build over a long time. It makes it hard to experiment with the more complex combiners though.

(Also, I overflowed the final score chart in version 1.3! http://imgur.com/a/lS7rz )
ZYXer
ZYXer27 Dec 2016, 10:09
It took me six goes, but I made to over 3000! :P

Love the combination of puzzler, base-building and time pressure. Well done on graphics, I especially like that you did a pico-8 game.

Sounds are good, though it took me some time to understand that the blender noise was not me doing something wrong.

Overall, very well implemented game!
Fib
Fib27 Dec 2016, 20:04
I love economy games. A great entry! Good job!
joe40001
joe4000128 Dec 2016, 10:12
Enjoyed this game a lot! Here's my high score:
http://i.imgur.com/XUjc1D4.png

Just the right amount of ways to play to make it fun to try to get far but not overwhelming. Great job. :)
erikiene
erikiene29 Dec 2016, 20:03
Just wanted to pop in again and say thank you for the extremely helpful feedback You gave to me on my entry. So yeah, thank You, it is much appreciated!
TheMonsterFromTheDeep
TheMonsterFromTheDeep30 Dec 2016, 09:53
The only real problem I have is that the controls are really difficult to use effectively. I ended up just using bread because it was too difficult to try more complicated constructions.
Steven Miller
Steven Miller31 Dec 2016, 06:50
Great game! My best score was 7140 after a few tries.
qualia
qualia2 Jan 2017, 00:21
Really great use of the strengths of P8!
elmoGames2 Jan 2017, 17:33
Neat game pretty well made in Pico, it was a bit easy to just stay alive

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