Proto Garden

A solid core loop of optimising the cloning and redirection of worker bees to produce increasingly complex structures. Each tech in the research tree not only gives new recipes to craft, but buildings that often flip your current setup on its head to squeeze out more production in increasingly smaller spaces. The majority of Proto Garden has a really nice, natural progression. In the late game it does run out of steam a little, there were certainly cool-seeming upgrades but I didn't feel encouraged or mechanically driven to use them to complete the game, such as the copy-cages. That said, the ascension mode unlocked after finishing your first playthrough (around 12 hours) allows you to put in some fun restrictions for an extra challenge. The visuals could use some improvement, not necessarily in terms of graphics but more for clarity. The forced direct overhead view (unless very, very zoomed in) is restrictive, and more UX toggles could be added to clear up the noise, for example a 'resource opacity' toggle to more easily see your bee factory layout while it's in operation, or a heatmap showing resource density on each tile relative to the cap, to help optimise. At time of writin…

modded factorio sure looks weird nowadays more optimization pls, pretty pls

Narrowly recommending -- I was really enjoying it, but after getting about halfway through the tech tree, the amount of complexity required on the board started lagging the whole game to the point of the audio stuttering, and interacting with such a choppy UI started giving me a headache.... Still a recommendation though, because 1) your mileage may vary (I'm on a Ryzen 5 2600X and a RTX 3070 Ti, fwiw), and 2) I got plenty of fun out of it before tapping out regardless. One other thing to point out though: my demo map failed to load in the full game, so I'd recommend taking the plunge before getting too invested in what you've built.... (I had been tempted to start fresh anyway though, knowing what I learned over the course of the demo.) (Oh, and, I've gotta say it; too bad about the AI art title screen.............)

A great prototype. if you like factory games, Bees and Frogs Its cute. Performance is pretty bad, yet "Emotional Engagement" (manipulation) is nowhere to be found! My love for frogs and bees is doing a lot of heavy lifting, yet that can be a positive for individuals who are self motivated. Low frame performance of the factory is motivation to optimize your production, because this cozy game has no other internal mechanisms of pressuring the player to play. Very Cozy, good time.

the niche factory game genre must grow!

Game is okay But should be half the price tho so i DO NOT recommend it at this price