Despite factory production lines often being painted with a boring brush, they can in fact be rather fascinating. Mesmerizing, even. When gamified in the likes of Satisfactory, Shapez 2, and Factorio, they become even more transfixing, addictive, relaxing, or a mixture of all three. Well, here comes another challenger in this factory game arena, and it’s looking incredibly slick, versatile, and willing to make big changes to keep players happy. This is Modulus, and it’s just dropped its first ever demo on Steam to let you try out its incredible voxel production lines.
Modulus has been in the works for a little while now and has been through a fair amount of playtests, but now it’s time to open it up further with its debut demo. At a first glance, it’s hitting all the right notes of a good factory-style building game. Satisfying layouts and visuals, networks of connected conveyor belts, and some big canvases for your creations. However, it’s taking some interesting, novel approaches when it comes to what you actually make and how your structures are actually built.
Modulus works off of a voxel-based system, whereby you craft different modules made from cubes – these are essentially your building blocks. There isn’t a ‘recipe’ system here, whereby you allocate the specific materials to make ‘building X’ or ‘machine Y.’ It’s simply about setting your factories to produce the right shape and amount of blocks that you need, then sending conveyor belts to the site of the building you’re erecting.
While that’s satisfying in itself, what’s even more pleasing is watching each individual block gradually get added to your structures in real-time when they reach the building site. I also love the way a typical Modulus landscape looks. The multi-storey factories make it appear, at times, like a metropolis, with conveyor belts being the roads snaking in between the skyscrapers. It gives Cities Skylines, at times.
As you progress, you’ll be able to create different configurations of modules and learn new skills through the game’s Tech Tree. The overarching objective, alongside having a jolly relaxing time, is to build a series of Monuments. These are incredibly large and complicated structures that’ll require you to have lots of skills unlocked and huge factory networks feeding into them. This doesn’t all take place on the same individual map, either – Modulus offers up multiple islands to unlock, each with increasingly large play spaces and more rare resources.
Initially, money was also going to be a core aspect of the game, forcing you to spend wisely and stopping your production lines from ballooning too quickly. However, following feedback from playtests, Modulus’ developer Happy Volcano has decided to completely remove it from the game, and that major change is reflected in the new demo.
“It wasn’t balanced well and caused moments of waiting for more money, which definitely didn’t sit well with players,” says game director David Prinsmel in a dev log. “After thinking this through more, we saw an opportunity to completely remove it from the whole game. It just wasn’t helping the game in any way. And since this being a zen game, where we focus on relaxing gameplay, not feeling any pressure and exploring your creativity, it just feels like a better design now. You are free to place and build whatever you want at any moment.”
Prinsmel also says that the demo is a basic introduction into the game’s mechanics, including the paint system that will let you add some color to your worlds, and is just “the tip of the iceberg.”
“I estimate we only show 5% of the content of [early access] in the demo. And our EA scope is only 66% of the full game. That should give you an idea of how much more is coming,” he pledges.
The Modulus demo is live on Steam right now. To download it, or learn more about this extremely versatile building game, head to its store page here.
Once you’ve got your fill of Modulus, check out some other epic sandbox games. Or if you love its satisfying, chill vibes, here are our favorite relaxing games.
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