Satisfying: board game preview

Automation and factory building games have become very popular in the past few years, and Coffee Stain Satisfactory Studio is one of the stars of the genre. I've always admired the conveyor belts and massive structures of manufacturing powerhouses from a comfortable distance, dipping my toe in the water with messy (but somehow functional) factories. Factory builders will soon have a whole new way to build their process, as Mood Publishing, the same publisher of Hitman: The Board Game, is looking to bring the popular factory sim to Satisfactory: The Board Game and launching its latest crowdfunding campaign on Gamefound. We were sent an early version of the prototype to investigate, in addition to running a demo with game designer David Thor Falarson, to see if a tabletop game could capture and refine the experience as satisfyingly as a factory the size of a kitchen table.

Satisfying: Board Game Preview Images

In Satisfactory: The Board Game (simply known as "Satisfactory" in the future), designed by David Thor Fjalarsson, up to four players must mine, refine, and upgrade their factories to earn the most FICSIT points before the space elevator runs out. The spins are surprisingly simple. On your turn, you will take two actions, either build something, move around the map, or let your factory do its thing. Once each player has taken their turn, the production phase occurs, where the mines are all activated, digging for one of three basic materials - limestone, iron, or copper - and the materials on their conveyors move down to become better resources. Then, it repeats its entire cycle. Even in my first game, when my group had reached the second or third round, we slowed down the flow.

The game itself takes place on a large hex screen from the massive video game world, with random creatures and biomes that spawn during launch, along with various material-rich spots where mines can be placed. The "move" action is self-explanatory, allowing you to move your piece a number of spaces equal to your movement amount, with some spaces only traversable when certain technologies or vehicles have been built. Landing on a spot can give you resources or allow you to claim one of the previously mentioned tokens. If you prefer to do extra work on your factories, you can instead choose the "Workshop" action, which allows you to move a line of resources down or modify a block of material to a higher version, a vital component when crafting.

“Putting these bonuses together to create some wild spins was some of the most fun I've had in Satisfactory.

When it came to building things, the Build action was my favorite, considering what I could do in the game. At any given time, players will have access to their main machine builds – miners, refineries, etc. – plus a random set of cards of varying levels unlocked throughout the game. These cards are a big help, like a jetpack to help you get around faster or weapons to deal with wildlife, but the main structures you can build have little fun to them. Depending on what you build, you'll have a bonus action you can take, which is determined by what you built. For example, building a miner allows you to instantly build a belt, which then triggers the belt bonus, giving you a free move, or the builder, giving you an extra action you can take on your turn. Putting these bonuses together to create some wild spins was one of the most satisfyingly fun games ever.

When it comes to gameplay, the Satisfactory tabletop adaptation has opted for a competitive "race for points" experience for its core game rather than focusing on the PC title - although the promised final game will also include co-op and solo modes. That said, don't expect to be bombing or taking out other players' cleats and belts in a game of cardboard corporate terrorism. Instead, once a player has claimed a tile by building something on it, no other player can progress on it, although they can still pass through it without issue. Satisfying can still be "bad", but it's more like being cleverly routed or developing. Annoying for your opponents rather than turning the planet into a battlefield.

Do you prefer competitive or cooperative board games?

Cooperative, everyone is in this together!

This type of headbutt really becomes apparent when you start getting into the three or four. In two players, since both players have so much more space, I was surprised and impressed by how satisfyingly different it felt. During my two-player game, I was much less concerned about other players locking my factory, instead I could focus and do the best I could to try and optimize my system (as much as you can in such games after a few games). I honestly felt like I was playing different games based on the number of players, with two players focusing on optimization and planning to maximize points, while with three players and especially four, figuring out the best way to expand my factory and balance blocking resources from others was much more at the forefront of my mind. Oddly enough, I think I enjoyed the mystery nature of the lower player count more because we didn't both have to go head-to-head, and I was better able to test out what Satisfactory had to offer.

In a two-player game, I focused on maximizing my primary resource production, getting all my miners online as much as I could, and extending my reach to a few "rich" tiles further afield, which mostly allowed me to produce more resources. During production, having nearly as many of these cheaper resources allowed me to hit early game milestones faster than the elevator could take me. Collect and finish. During one memorable event, I was able to complete four Milestones in a row thanks to the rewards I received from completing objectives and what I had earned from the various Biomes I visited that turn. It was a direct shot of dopamine to the system and basically sold me on Satisfactory alone.

Admittedly, I'm nowhere near Satisfactory from the perspective of someone who's spent many hours on the game it's adapted from, but even this compact package still manages to feel satisfying. Watching my conveyor belt routes expand outward across the map, discovering alternative recipes, and building a network of machines that allow me to continue to refine my goods and unlock new technologies, it's all still here. Even memorable creatures like Bean are here. There are plenty of other musicians that old players get better than I do, but I admire the designers who still manage to make that feel satisfying in their hearts. Obviously, this tabletop adaptation can't replicate the massive, almost limitless scale of the PC game, but it seems to have successfully extracted what's most important: building a system that works, and then riding it until you need to upgrade it. Reaching Greater Heights

If there's one thing aspiring developers should be aware of, it's that satisfying is no small game. It needs a little table space to play and attacks you with icons. When multiple boards, stacks of cards, a large game board and its resource tokens are all laid out, it's an amazing tabletop experience. Some smart decisions, like keeping material types down to just three, will help keep you from straining your resource management. To be honest, it was more of a pain to keep track of and remember what all the symbols meant than managing my stash of colored cubes.

Different icons appear everywhere, on cards, on the map, player boards and even the victory point track, and at least in the prototype I had, it didn't have a player reference card. Fortunately, I've been assured that there is a version that comes with the published version, which should alleviate some of this headache of keeping track of what it means. The symbols took longer to understand than the game, but eventually, it started to click, and again, with the reference card included, a lot of that pain will be alleviated.

Satisfying: The board game is still being tweaked and tweaked, but Mood seems to have managed to pare down the complex crafting gameplay and distill it down to its raw ingredients to create a surprisingly accessible (if not a little scary) board game. The limited action choices you have on your turn helps the turns to be quick and snappy, but I can definitely see the turns easily getting a little longer if you tend to overanalyze your turns or have to play the most optimally. Regardless, the implementation here is impressive, accommodating so many systems while still being a game that won't last all day (my games usually last 2-3.5 hours). Fortunately, before the game is supported, a draft version of the rules has been posted on the Gamefound page, along with a full list of addons and what's included in the pledge lines. Or better yet, you and your gaming group can try it out for yourself in the tablet emulator on Steam using an official MOOD-made preview mod! Now, back to trying to figure out how to build our big factory.