Automation games are hitting Steam left-right-and-centre at the moment, but Apocalypse Factory stands out among many of them for a rather unique addition: Zombies.
Build Your Factory
You start out crafting and mining by hand while you get to grips with the basic Apocalypse Factory mechanics. The crafting menu is simple but has icons and pop-ups to show what you need for each recipe. It also auto-stacks other crafting items you need for bigger projects, so you only need to worry about collecting basic resources.
Crafted items are placed on a grid from a top-down perspective. However, your avatar determines your range, and you need to manoeuvre him into place before placing machines. These machines then need to be powered by batteries, which need fuel to work and conveyor belts to pass supplies between.
I had some trouble with placing things and linking up the conveyor belts. There were levers to determine where things came out, and I understood the basic mechanics. However, placing them was not intuitive. It also appears, from screenshots on the game page, I realised that I was doing things somewhat backwards and had no idea some of the setups were even possible.
There isn’t much of a rush to do things at the beginning as you start popping down excavators and crafters, with an aim to automate. Things are slow as you manually collect and craft resources to research things on your skill tree, but it soon gains pace. Especially once you start venturing further and finding new resources.
Survive The Apocalypse
Waves of zombies begin appearing on the map in waves after hitting a certain area. They seem to come from the buildings and aim for the closest structure you’ve placed. Once triggered, they will start working their way around your machines until there is nothing left but the original resource points. This is where the tactical aspect of Apocalypse Factory comes into play.
You have several things to consider: where to place machines, where to place defence turrets, and how you’re going to supply the turrets. This turns Apocalypse Factory into somewhat of a tower defence game as you place your resources and defences in the best places to survive.
Find The Light
The general vibes are a bit bright and clean, in a way that doesn’t really give off “end of the world” vibes. That said, it isn’t egregious, just cartoony. I don’t want to harp too much about the graphics, though, as it actually looks like Apocalypse Factory uses a bunch of familiar asset packs. I’m quite happy to accept this from an indie developer, and I’d much rather that than a face full of AI.
Remembering that Apocalypse Factory is still in Early Access, I realise there is still some room for changes, but there were some issues. The user interface (UI) could use some revamping and be more accessible. The tutorial wasn’t comprehensive enough to cover some of the machine’s functions and was difficult to read. I thought having an avatar was an interesting addition, but the controls weren’t the most responsive and felt sluggish or sticky in places.
Is This The End?
That being said, Apocalypse Factory has a really interesting core mechanic and concept. While still in Early Access, I’m hopeful we will see some positive changes and am optimistic about the future roadmap.
Coming from a single dev, Apocalypse Factory is already an impressive and ambitious achievement. I look forward to seeing how it plays come the full release.
Played on: PC
Developer/Publisher: Mind Leak
Code Provided By: Keymailer
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