Best Factory Simulation Games

Summary

• Factory simulators offer immersive automation gameplay focused on building efficient production lines.
• Specific titles like Automachef and Learning Factory challenge players with unique scenarios and logical puzzles.
• Niche genres like base building, automation, and resource management blend in games like Dyson Sphere Program and Factorio.

Simulators allow players to experience a different slice of life in the comfort of their own home. This category has a variety of sub-genres such as factory simulation, where players get to manage and create plants where they must successfully create products.

Commonly, these games are popular with fans of the feature known as automation. These factories are solely run by other machinery that players need to plan the placement of to have a functioning factory system. As a niche genre, there are only a few factory titles, but these are by far the best.

Updated January 28, 2025, by Rie Takumi: Factory simulation video games scratch a specific itch. Most games value mastery over how parts can optimize production lines to make the most of available resources. Others progress through clever solutions to logic puzzles built into factory sims and reward hardcore grinders with means to automate more mundane processes. And to some gamers, the process of creating map-spanning production systems is rewarding enough on its own. Games like Factorio allow players to focus on building factories, researching tech and infrastructures, and graduating to produce increasingly complex products. Players typically share their layouts and manufacturing solutions with fellow players online to help or find new ways of building their factories.

28

Automachef

Design An Automated Restaurant

Gamers who are also foodies would love Automachef, a resource management puzzle game where they’re tasked to automate a kitchen. Players design, build, and program restaurants restricted by resources and tricky scenarios. At their disposal are machines categorized as dispensers, transporters, transformers, and assemblers, among others, set on grids at optimized positions.

Programmers or gamers who love logic puzzles may find Automachef challenging. Half the fun is figuring out the game’s logic. Finding out the relationship between income, efficiency, and power, as well as the use of newly unlocked machines, takes up a lot of game time.

27

Alan’s Automation Workshop

Solve Client Pain Points By Programming Automatons

While not a factory in the traditional sense, Alan’s Automation Workshop is a brilliant simulation combined with the puzzle genre. Players who enjoy the logical side of factory simulators must find new ways to solve the client’s issues through automation.

Players will be encouraged to test out their new creations before attempting to sell them to the client. Naturally, new problems cause new solutions to be created, and as a novice engineer, the player should be sure to explore their creativity to make a profit while finding the answers.

26

Learning Factory

Machine Learning & Manufacturing Goods For Cats

Another great factory game straight off the assembly line is Learning Factory, a game that tasks the player with deploying conveyor belts in intricate ways to craft and sell an assortment of goods to adorable cats. As the title of the game suggests, players will need to keep learning new things if they hope to achieve catopia in one of the best factory games ever.

Learning Factory takes making a factory on Mars a step further as players can analyze their selling data to see what they could improve upon and make the factory more efficient. Above all else, this is a relaxing game as it takes the stress out of management.

25

Factory Town Idle

Automate To Create A Healthy Factory Town

Like an idle game title, Factory Town Idle allows players to play a game and make a profit while barely needing to click a single button. Unlike other idle titles, Factory Town combines multiple genres into one making it part clicker, part idle game, part builder, and part management title; giving players significantly more to get stuck into.

As a factory town, it is up to the player to build different production buildings as well as houses for their workers to expand their town into a brilliant industrial hub that will gradually bring in the big bucks for the player.

24

The Farmer Was Replaced

Automate Agricultural Tasks To Grind Efficiently

The Farmer Was Replaced is a programming game that lets automation fans build their dream factory using drones. Gamers don’t need to go in with prerequisite coding knowledge thanks to a simple tutorial that teaches basic programming concepts and the game’s Python-like code.

It’s a forgiving game that allows the greenest programmer to get used to its simplest automation loops. Clearing challenges rewards players with better means of automation, as well as decent knowledge of basic algorithms and visual programming.

23

Bleentoro

Minimalist Factory Simulator With No Microtransactions

Bleentoro is a logic puzzle game that allows players to automate minimalist factories. Players start with blocks that produce materials, like cherries and lemons, and draw assembly lines with their fingers to combinators, converters, and other machines to create new materials.

Players are free to design their factory layout in sandbox and campaign mode, albeit with objective endpoints for the latter. Bleentoro even has a level editor for puzzle and factory automation fans who want to test their knowledge and make something fun.

22

Planet Crafter

Terraforming Planets Through Effective Base Building

Another entry in the terraforming genre is The Planet Crafter. Up to 10 players can collaborate on a world-spanning project to terraform an inhospitable planet via effective production lines. Since it’s a survival game, teams will need to do a fair bit of gathering, but the resulting factories make the grind worth it.

Like other base builders, the game starts with basic tools for gathering and crafting. Progressing through the tech tree helps players redirect water to their settlements, regrow plants for oxygen, and build increasingly complex machinery for more materials.

21

Techtonica

Roam A Rich Cave System To Hand-Build & Automate A Factory

First-person base building may seem strange, but Techtonica makes it work. Base building in Techtonica involves using the environment to automate resource gathering. Waterfalls can be used to power water wheels, wide floor spaces next to mineable areas are best suited for mining drills, and sorting plants can be automated via threshers.

Optimizing builds can help players create sustainable factories. Conveyor belts, inserters, and other schematics can help factories achieve full automation. Before that, however, players need to unlock schematics by fixing terminals around the map.

20

Foundry

Create Conveyor Belt Production Lines To Automate Voxel World

Another Early Access game, Foundry puts players into the mecha shoes of robots tasked with building and programming automated mega-factories on alien worlds. Players start, after an intuitive tutorial, by gathering resources to create their first resource-gathering and processing bots.

Eventually, players can plan out elaborate production lines and systems. Ambitious players can create factories in different biomes and go deep underground for ores and other resources. If players want extra hands to build these factories, they can invite their friends over to their world.

19

Astro Colony

Automate The Final Frontier Colonies

Conveyor belts and pipes will help gamers create their dream space factories in Astro Colony. Players start like they would in a first-person survival game, where they mine asteroids for materials they’ll use to build their first factories. Actions like mining will also yield resources like science points.

Material and skill resources are needed to unlock and build bots and facilities. Clever pathing helps players get to the automation part of the game faster. The game also supports online co-op, which means parties can speed through universes and make mega factories faster.

18

Beer Factory – Prologue

Manage A Brewery From Production Lines To Import/Export

Simulation titles tend to allow players to experience an alternate life for themselves and Beer Factory intends to allow players to do exactly that by learning how to manage their own beer business. As the name suggests in this business and management simulator players will be running a beer factory, from purchasing the necessary ingredients to finding a place to sell them.

Unfortunately, this is just the prologue to the full game that hasn’t yet been released though even just the prologue of Beer Factory has impressed many players who look forward to running their factory that sells an assortment of beers.

17

Little Big Workshop

Grow A Small Factory Into A Manufacturing Giant

In this fantastical management game, players become the boss of a factory that they build from humble beginnings. Players must manage their workers and the stations they build all while attempting to create the best products available.

Players don’t need to stress though, as even when the factory starts to expand with more stations to create products that will need far more workers, Little Big Workshop is still entertaining to play. Part of the fun is the freedom factory owners are given to take their company in a direction they will enjoy though it is important to make a living.

16

Production Line: Car Factory Simulation

Factory Building For Auto Enthusiasts

Owning a company; especially a car company, can be very competitive. Production Line: Car Factory Simulator pushes the entrepreneurship skills of the player to their limits in the hope of creating a successful car factory that beats the rest of the competition.

Automation is key in this title as players will want to strive to make an easy-flowing system that needs little intervention while also creating cars fast. Players will be constantly improving their factory designs from the beginning stages of their company which may move slowly to eventually a well-oiled system through hours of practice.

15

Autonauts

Scratch-Style Programming For Factory Automation

Autonauts is a charming planet colonization game with factory automation as a main gameplay element. Players start and maintain their colonies through workerbots that can be upgraded for efficiency and to perform more tasks. All programming is done through an easy-to-use Scratch-style programming language that even kids can enjoy.

Workerbots don’t need to follow conveyor belts, but players will naturally be drawn to optimizing paths to various agricultural stations. Planning which station to build first, and what blueprints to unlock, is also part of the natural game cycle.

14

Factory Town

Automate To Create A Healthy Factory Town

On the more unrealistic side, Factory Town relies on the player attempting to create a factory within a settlement that lives in the wilderness. With a combination of conveyor belts and steam-powered trains, players will eventually have enough stations set up to create a variety of resources to help their town thrive.

Similarly to Infinifactory, players can work through eight different maps in the campaign where they must complete a task. If they prefer the freedom to create their very own town, there is also a sandbox mode to enjoy.

13

The Captain Of Industry

Factory Automation Key To Surviving On Island

Captain of Industry is a factory simulator with survival elements. Landing on an abandoned island with a small crew, the player must build to survive. Planting fields of crops, establishing housing, and then finally creating efficient factories to refine these materials will not only help the players grow their settlement but also grow as an economic powerhouse.

Managing it all may seem difficult, but luckily players can start small before gradually expanding what products they produce. As Captain of Industry is currently in early access there is plenty more in store for players with each update of the game.

12

ReFactory

Build A Mega-Factory On 2D Alien World

Unlike other factory games, ReFactory immediately starts players with automation to do everything for them. They can even configure the amount of resources their starting planet has, its biomes, and threat levels. If players are uninterested in combat, they can remove monster spawns completely and focus on making the perfect automated factory network.

ReFactory is 100% playable on mobile, and while saves do not carry over, experienced players can easily start a new facility. The top-down view and customization make it easier to start over and re-orient their production goals.

11

Opus Magnum

Perform Alchemy With Zachtronics Puzzles

Zachtronics is known for their engineering and automation puzzle games, such as SpaceChem, Infinifactory, TIS-100, and Shenzhen I/O. Opus Magnum follows their formula of using automation and programming to solve logic puzzles that take a fair bit of brainwork to understand.

There’s no set ending for alchemists in Opus Magnum. Alchemists can keep creating machines that use customizable arms, tracks, wheels, and esoteric machines to transmute amazing products. Brainy gamers can even design manufacturing puzzles that other alchemists can solve through the Journal of Alchemical Engineering.

10

Astroneer

Build Modular Assembly Lines For Space Exploration

Molding alien worlds to accommodate acres of interconnected production machines and moving on to another world to do it all over again is Astroneer’s core loop. Building production lines is the only way to harvest and build up enough resources to move on to any of the solar system’s seven worlds.

With no arbitrary hunger meter, players have one less thing to worry about while exploring alien ecosystems. Teams of up to four Astroneers can focus on goofing around or building a serious automation line instead of worrying about dyed-in survival mechanics.

9

The Riftbreaker

Survival Action RPG & RTS Reliant On Factory Automation

Gamers looking for factory simulation games with a side of wave clearing can pick up The Riftbreaker. Players have direct control of a mech pilot they use to clear creatures that would try to destroy them or their factory. Building a well-built factory is essential to surviving even a night in-game, and so is finding resources for the factory.

Much like StarCraft, players must look for resources to power their factories. Protecting these stations is a must, especially when looking for resources deeper into the map. This may not be the game for players looking for a relaxing factory game, though players who want action with their automation fantasy have a lot to play with here.