Info about FOUNDRY:

Official game description:
Roadmap
=======
This roadmap outlines our future plans for the game, including both some planned features and ideas. Please note that features mentioned here are not guaranteed and may change.
About the Game
==============
**FOUNDRY** is a first-person (first-robot?) factory builder with complete creative freedom set in a procedurally generated and infinite voxel world.  
Land on an unexplored planet and design a giant automated robot production facility under the watchful direction of your AI friend, Carl. Navigate the complexities of interstellar trade and sell your products through interplanetary trade networks to reach your final goal: galactic industrial domination.
*   Progress from manual resource extraction to a fully automated and perfectly optimized factory.
*   Construct towering machinery and snaking networks of conveyor belts and pipes with no limits on where you build.
*   Explore a vibrant voxel world and sculpt the landscape block by block.
*   Research new, more advanced technologies to meet the demands of your ever-growing production lines.
*   Personalize your creation by unlocking decorative items and new color options.
*   Maintain a complex power system to keep your factory running at top speed.
*   Work solo or recruit outside contractors in online or LAN co-op multiplayer.
*   Create an enormous factory complex stretching from deep underground to the planet’s surface and the skies above.
Build Anything, Anywhere
------------------------
Create a mechanically magnificent factory and a work of industrial art integrating your creation into the environment around you. Set up your machines far below the surface, high in the sky and everywhere in between. Grid-based construction gives you precise control over where and what you build. 
Land on an unexplored planet and explore a procedurally generated sandbox. Journey through dense jungles, gigantic mountain ranges, and great plains stretching into the horizon, with even more to discover beneath the surface.
Automate Everything
-------------------
Design intricate systems of conveyor belts, long-distance transport networks, pipes and elevators from deep underground to automate your research. Unlock more advanced, complex and faster technology to optimize your factory and maximize production.
You’ll start by crafting items and harvesting resources manually but will soon find yourself setting up assembly lines piece by piece to devise a system that flows perfectly. Combine form, fit and function to create a smooth setup that effortlessly transforms raw materials into galaxy-grade robot products without you lifting a metallic finger.
Optimize to Perfection
----------------------
Bottlenecks are your enemies. Remember to maintain a delicate balance between inputs and outputs so that productivity reaches its maximum potential, enabling you to progress through an extensive research tree.
Ensure that manufacturing runs at full speed. Keep your power supply well-fed and, as your factory expands, unlock upgraded machinery, advanced power generators and new customization options that will add efficiency and a splash of color to your production lines.
Work solo or collaborate in co-op and engineer creative solutions to complex logistical challenges in a vast voxel world.

Release date: May 2, 2024

Categories: Factory Building, Automation Game, Voxel-based Gameplay, First-Person Perspective, Grid-based Placement, Galactic Trade System, Research and Technology, Multiplayer Functionality

Feature scans:
- MTX: score 70; verdict: Aggressive Monetization; summary: The game exhibits patterns of potentially frustrating mechanics and a history of extensive DLC releases, which can significantly increase the overall cost. While some players are positively inclined towards purchasing additional content, there are concerns about the game's monetization strategies resembling mobile game tactics and locking functionalities behind expensive DLCs.
- Wiki: score 50; verdict: Needs Improvement in Instructional Data; summary: The game suffers from a lack of clear explanations and an unintuitive UI, making it difficult for users to understand complex mechanics. Users often need to rely on external resources or built-in wikis to figure out how things work. However, there are positive notes on the minimal need for wiki usage and the efforts made to assist newcomers.
- Steam Deck: score 55; verdict: Tinkering Required; summary: The analysis of user feedback reveals significant issues with the Paradox Launcher, which is seen as intrusive and unnecessary. Linux users face compatibility issues with Proton, particularly with multiplayer functionality. Controller support on the Steam Deck is reported as poor, and there are complaints about small text and UI elements being difficult to read. Additionally, building mechanics and performance on the Steam Deck are noted to be cumbersome and slow.

- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price:
  - Community fair range: $15.00 - $20.00
  - Reasoning: The evidence suggests that users find the game worth the price around $15 to $20, with some considering the full price of $30 as decent value. The repeated mention of the game being worth it at sale prices around $15 to $20 indicates a perceived fair value in that range. Additionally, users highlight the game's replay value and the amount of content as justifying the price.
- Playtime Metrics:
  - Game completion: 150.0h
  - Story completion: 50.0h
  - Session length: 2.0h
  - Endgame: 75.0h
  - Reasoning: The evidence provided includes several mentions of specific playtime metrics. For example, one user mentions enjoying 75 hours of gameplay but feeling a lack of late-game content, which suggests a significant investment in game completion and endgame play. Another user mentions being 40 hours into the game, indicating a substantial session length and progress towards story completion. Additionally, a user notes that after 170 hours, they are far from finishing the game, which provides insight into the extensive playtime required for game completion and endgame content. These quotes help estimate the typical playtime metrics for different stages of the game.
- Time-to-fun:
  - Summary: The game has a slow and frustrating start due to a tedious tutorial and clunky mechanics, but it becomes enjoyable once players overcome the initial learning curve and early game friction.
  - Stance: Fun then drops
  - Anchor: Overcoming the initial learning curve and early game friction.
  - Time to anchor: 1h 0m
  - Friction: Tedious tutorial process; Clunky mechanics; Unclear instructions; Slow early game progression; Repetitive tasks
  - Unlock drivers: Overcoming the initial learning curve; Understanding game mechanics; Progressing past early game friction
  - Conditions: Playing with friends in co-op mode; Having patience to overcome the initial learning curve; Enjoying factory-building and automation games
- Player Archetypes:
  - Veteran Factory Builder (sale)
    - Motivation: Seeking a unique blend of familiar factory-building mechanics with new elements.
    - Playstyle: Strategic and methodical, focusing on building and optimizing factories.
    - Experience: veteran
    - Purchase stance: sale
    - Labels: Factory-building veteran; Experienced gamer
    - Reference games: Factorio; Satisfactory; Dyson Sphere Program; Minecraft
  - Automation Enthusiast (buy)
    - Motivation: Enjoys creating and optimizing automated systems.
    - Playstyle: Focused on building and improving automated production lines.
    - Experience: familiar
    - Purchase stance: buy
    - Labels: Automation lover; Tech enthusiast
    - Reference games: Factorio; Satisfactory; Minecraft
  - Creative Builder (buy)
    - Motivation: Enjoys the creative and relaxing aspects of building and terraforming.
    - Playstyle: Creative and relaxed, focusing on building and customizing structures.
    - Experience: mixed
    - Purchase stance: buy
    - Labels: Creative builder; Relaxed gamer
    - Reference games: Minecraft; Satisfactory


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Positive overall game experience (weight 0.32): Players consistently describe the game as great, awesome, and phenomenal. They enjoy the gameplay, progression, and find it highly recommendable, especially in co-op mode.
- Accessible and engaging gameplay (weight 0.16): The game offers accessible and engaging gameplay mechanics that are familiar to fans of similar games. It includes impactful and deconflicted gameplay elements.
- Intuitive and smooth building (weight 0.14): Building and deconstructing in the game are smooth and intuitive. The building tools are complex yet easy to use, offering full freedom in building.
- Complex automation and logistics (weight 0.14): The game features complex automation and logistics systems, which are solid and fluid, providing depth and complexity to the gameplay.
- High potential and content (weight 0.14): Reviewers note that the game has a lot of potential and offers quite a lot of content, indicating a promising future and substantial gameplay.
- Great addition to factory genre (weight 0.14): The game is seen as a great addition to the factory-building genre, offering an interesting and fun variant for fans of factory games.
- Voxel-based world and building (weight 0.13): The game utilizes a voxel style that is completely destructible and customizable, offering a modular and readable building system.
- Polished Early Access experience (weight 0.12): Despite being in Early Access, the game runs smoothly and is remarkably polished, with few crashes or bugs reported.
- Addictive gameplay mechanics (weight 0.12): Players find the gameplay loop and mechanics highly addictive and engaging, contributing to the game's appeal.
- Similar to Factorio and Satisfactory (weight 0.11): The game is often compared to Factorio and Satisfactory, drawing inspiration from these titles and offering a similar experience.
- Destructible and modifiable terrain (weight 0.11): The game features destructible and minable terrain, allowing for terrain leveling and modification, adding to the gameplay experience.
- Optimized performance (weight 0.09): The game is noted for its good performance and optimization, ensuring a smooth gaming experience.
- Intuitive and customizable controls (weight 0.09): The game features intuitive and customizable controls, enhancing the overall gameplay experience.
- Galactic economy and trading (weight 0.09): Players can build and supply a galactic economy, engaging in galactic trading and market dynamics.
- Low-voltage wiring system (weight 0.08): The game features a low-voltage automatic wiring system, eliminating the need for low-voltage wires and simplifying electrical management.

Common complaints:
- Third-party launcher issues (weight 0.21): The game uses and installs a third-party launcher without permission, requiring an additional launcher that users find unnecessary.
- Cluttered and clunky UI (weight 0.21): The user interface is described as cluttered, clunky, and non-intuitive, with performance issues and poor design.
- Poor graphics and design (weight 0.18): The game's graphics are criticized as visually ugly, unappealing, and disturbing, with low texture quality and poor interface design.
- Research time issues (weight 0.18): Research in the game takes too long and is described as a time sink, with no queue for research and increasingly longer wait times.
- Lack of copy/paste and blueprint features (weight 0.18): The game lacks copy/paste or blueprinting features, which are considered essential for building and design.
- Lacking content and replay value (weight 0.16): The game is criticized for lacking content, replay value, endgame content, and motivation, with incomplete content and lack of voice acting.
- Similarities to Satisfactory (weight 0.15): The game is criticized for being a rip-off or clone of Satisfactory, not offering anything particularly interesting compared to it.
- Slow and cumbersome gameplay (weight 0.11): The game is described as too slow and plodding, with a cumbersome and half-baked development pace.
- Controls and movement issues (weight 0.11): The controls feel off and could be better, with movement described as clunky and gameplay feeling stale.
- Unclear objectives and goals (weight 0.09): The game lacks clear, achievable objectives and goals, leaving players without a real reason or purpose.
- Missing essential tools and features (weight 0.09): The game lacks essential tools and features, including several expected features and quality-of-life improvements.
- Limited vertical conveyors (weight 0.08): The game has limited vertical conveyors, leading to flat 3D designs due to weak vertical conveyor belts.
- First-person perspective frustrations (weight 0.08): Navigation and interaction in the first-person view are difficult, leading to frustration with the 3D first-person perspective.
- Imbalanced and boring gameplay (weight 0.08): The gameplay is described as imbalanced and boring, with non-engaging mechanics.
- Lack of 3D mobility and design depth (weight 0.08): The game lacks 3D mobility and design depth, with a lack of flat maps contributing to this issue.
- Finite resource nodes (weight 0.08): Resource nodes are not infinite, with random and finite extraction rates, which can be frustrating for players.

Gameplay feedback:
- Factory building mechanics (weight 0.46): The core gameplay revolves around building and automating factories, including complex production chains and logistics.
- Voxel-based game world (weight 0.33): The game features a voxel-based world that is completely destructible, allowing for extensive terrain manipulation and industrialization within a voxel grid system.
- Comparisons to other games (weight 0.25): The game is frequently compared to Satisfactory, Factorio, and Minecraft, often described as a blend of these games.
- First-person perspective (weight 0.15): The game is played from a first-person perspective, allowing for immersive building and navigation.
- Grid-based placement (weight 0.13): The game design includes a grid snapping system for precise placement of components and buildings.
- Galactic trade system (weight 0.09): Features a Galactic Market for trading, adding a layer of economic strategy to the game.
- Research and technology (weight 0.09): Includes a research system for technology advancement, which is crucial for progressing in the game.
- Multiplayer functionality (weight 0.08): Offers a multiplayer experience, allowing players to collaborate or compete in factory building and management.
- Station management (weight 0.08): Involves mechanics for managing space stations, adding another layer of complexity to the game.

Performance notes:
- Mixed performance feedback (weight 0.18): Players have varying opinions on the game's performance. Some report optimized and responsive performance, while others experience poor optimization and bad performance.
- Stability and smooth gameplay (weight 0.16): Many players report that the game runs smoothly and is stable, even in Early Access. Some mention that the game works generally well without too many bugs or crashes.
- Proton compatibility issues on Linux (weight 0.09): Linux users report that Proton 8 works better than Proton 9, which causes crashes in multiplayer. Some users specifically mention using Proton 8 for better compatibility.
- GPU usage and graphics issues (weight 0.09): There are mentions of GPU usage and graphics quality issues, including crashes when changing graphics settings and texture quality problems even at 4K resolution.
- Steam Deck and native launch issues (weight 0.06): Building takes longer on Steam Deck, and the game does not launch natively through Steam without a workaround, which can be frustrating for some players.
- Lower system requirements (weight 0.04): The game is reported to be lighter in terms of system requirements compared to similar games like Satisfactory.
- UI performance issues (weight 0.04): There are reports of poor UI performance, which affects the overall user experience.
- Specific hardware performance (weight 0.04): Some players report that the game runs flawlessly on specific hardware like the GTX 2060 Super.
- Launcher update required (weight 0.03): Players had to update the launcher immediately after installing the game, which could be an inconvenience.
- Wine for dedicated server (weight 0.03): There are mentions of using Wine for setting up a dedicated server, which could be relevant for players interested in hosting their own servers.

Recommendations:
- Recommended for factory-building fans (weight 0.36): This game is highly recommended for players who enjoy crafting and building large factories. It is often compared favorably to similar games like Factorio, Satisfactory, and Dyson Sphere Program.
- Mixed reviews on value (weight 0.11): Opinions on the game's value for money are mixed. Some players feel it is worth the price, especially on sale, while others believe it is not worth the full price and suggest waiting for more content.
- Suggestions for Minecraft fans (weight 0.11): The game is recommended for players who enjoy building and automation similar to Minecraft, especially with mods like Create and IndustrialCraft 2.
- Suggestions for terrain improvement (weight 0.08): Players have suggested adding options for flat mode and improving terrain removal on a grid for better building experiences.
- Positive recommendations (weight 0.07): Several players highly recommend the game, giving it high praise and suggesting it is a must-buy for fans of the genre.
- Early Access example (weight 0.04): The game is cited as a model example of an Early Access game, indicating it is well-developed even in its early stages.
- Founders edition worth it (weight 0.03): Some players believe that the Founders edition of the game is worth the investment.
- Future content suggestions (weight 0.03): There are recommendations to add more content, such as the ability to travel to other planets on the galaxy map.
- Unique underground perspective (weight 0.03): The game offers an enjoyable underground perspective, which some players find appealing and unique.
- Try if curious (weight 0.03): Some players suggest trying the game if you are curious about it, indicating it might be worth a look for those interested in the genre.

Other player notes:
- Paradox Launcher Issues (weight 0.07): Criticism of the Paradox launcher, including it being installed without user consent. This indicates potential user dissatisfaction with the launcher's implementation.
- Early Access Status (weight 0.07): The game is currently in Early Access, which means it is still under development and may have unfinished features or bugs.
- Active Linux Community (weight 0.04): There is active community support for Linux users, highlighting the game's accessibility and community engagement on different platforms.
- Plans to Revisit Later (weight 0.04): Some players plan to revisit the game in a couple of years, suggesting that they believe the game has potential but needs more development time.
- Free Weekend Mention (weight 0.04): The game was mentioned in the context of a free weekend, which could indicate a promotional event to attract more players.

Emotions:
- Frustration (weight 0.26): Players are frustrated with the game due to a variety of issues, including tedious manual placement and lack of blueprints, repetitive tasks, and various bugs. The removal of the radial menu, issues with the C3-BB companion robot, and the complexity of equipment management and facility construction also contribute to this frustration. Additionally, players are annoyed with the game's mechanics, lack of late-game options, and the forced use of a third-party launcher.
- Disappointment (weight 0.26): Players express disappointment due to the game's lack of certain features compared to other games, its current state, and lack of content. The game is perceived as a copy of other games without adding enough unique features, leading to a lack of challenge and innovation. Additionally, players find the game boring, not worth the money, and lacking in depth and engagement.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.11): Players enjoy the game for its overall positive experience, including building a galactic business, crafting, selling, and logistics features. The game's progression, purpose, and the ability to play with friends contribute to this enjoyment. Players also appreciate the game's mechanics, planetary features, and the fun aspects of gameplay.
- Excitement (weight 0.06): Players are excited about the game's features, overall quality, and its huge, complex world. The game's crafting and building mechanics, along with its unique features, generate excitement. Players are also looking forward to future updates and new mechanics, such as the upcoming trains feature.
- Satisfaction (weight 0.06): Players find satisfaction in the game's similarities to Factorio and Minecraft, its depth, freedom, and sense of progression. The detailed and serene gameplay experience, along with the addictive nature of the game, contribute to this satisfaction. Players also appreciate the game's polished state for Early Access and the developers' clear goals and constant additions.
- Hope (weight 0.04): Players have hope for the game's potential to improve with future updates and become a contender in the genre. They believe in future improvements and appreciate the active community support for Linux users.
- Joy (weight 0.03): Players experience joy from the game's unique features and overall experience. The intuitive building system, fun and engaging gameplay, and positive comparisons to other games contribute to this joy. Players also enjoy the galaxy map, galactic market, and the awesome moments with mechanics.
- Enthusiasm (weight 0.02): Players are enthusiastic about the game's depth and complexity, preferring it over similar games like Satisfactory. The reviewer enjoys the game and finds it fun, appreciating the gameplay mechanics.
- Boredom (weight 0.02): Players find the game boring due to repetitive tasks and dull gameplay. The lack of exciting gameplay elements and the need to wait around for things to happen contribute to this boredom.
- Anger (weight 0.02): Players are angry due to misleading information about controller support, poor optimization, and the high price of the game. The forced installation of the Paradox launcher and poor game design and mechanics also contribute to this anger.
- Love (weight 0.01): Players love the game for its automation factory gameplay and overall experience. The game's unique features and mechanics generate this love.
- Appreciation (weight 0.01): Players appreciate the game's low learning cost and good tutorial guidance. The simpler power grid construction, block-based building, and creative building options, along with good optimization, contribute to this appreciation.
- Anticipation (weight 0.01): Players are anticipating future content and looking forward to getting better at terraforming and decorating. The excitement for future updates and new features contributes to this anticipation.
- Hopeful (weight 0.01): Players are hopeful about the game's potential and looking forward to future updates. They believe in the game's ability to improve and become a better experience.
- Relief (weight 0.01): Players find relief in the game not being too hard and accessible. They also feel relieved that they did not have to purchase the game to realize it was not worth it.
- Concern (weight 0.01): Players are concerned about Paradox's data collection practices and the terms of service. The additional launcher requirements also contribute to this concern.
- Understanding (weight 0): Players understand why negative reviews exist, acknowledging the game's shortcomings and issues.
- Surprise (weight 0): Players are surprised by the discovery of Italian language support, finding it as a pleasant and unexpected feature.
- Overall satisfaction (weight 0): Players find the game to be good overall, appreciating its features, mechanics, and overall experience.
- Regret (weight 0): Players regret not giving the game a fair shot earlier, realizing its potential and enjoyable aspects.}