Ascend Factory

I actually feel bad giving this one a "not recommended" because it's obvious that the (solo?) developer put quite a bit of effort into this. It's better than anything I could ever make and if it was my project I would be immensely proud of it. But the problem is, it's more of a tech demo than a game. Automation games are my favorite genre and I've played most of them. To me, this game most closely resembles the game Infinifactory, where each level starts fresh with a new objective and constraints (resources, real-estate, etc). Each level is a small self-contained puzzle to solve. When you finish one, you start fresh on the next one, and repeat. That style is NOT my kind of automation game. I prefer something like Satisfactory where I can make an absolute mess of a spaghetti factory and continually build upon my previous work, never having to start over. That said, I gave this one an honest effort and was willing to give it a recommend if the game worked, even if it isn't my style of game. I was hoping for a cheap game in the genre to spend a few bucks on and get maybe 5 hours of play time. I would have called that a success. But the problem is, this game just doesn't function a…

this game is genuinely really promising, i like that it's similar to Miner's Haven (if you've played Roblox), while leaning into the puzzle aspect of factory building more than pure optimization. for what this game does well, it does REALLY well. sure, the mechanics aren't explained very well and the help menu could be expanded a lot more, but that isn't the end of the world. you have plenty of control on how you handle every level and figuring out what combo works is pretty enjoyable. goals are clear and concise and unlock more stuff in every level (or outright ends it), which makes the reward very clear for what you're needing to do. ...but that's where the issues start. Ascend Factory hasn't been updated since 2024 and is extremely buggy. you can't proceed to the next level without making a completely new save which is ass-backwards and counter-intuitive, and makes the "continue" button useless. when selecting a level sometimes you just can't select it and have to relaunch. i had to beat level 3 twice as the first time it didn't even register that i beat it despite the win screen and couldn't move on to level 4. in level 4 i couldn't progress because i could only switch betwe…