Mindustry is such a great game. I sunk tons of hours in both campaigns with a friend of mine.
For those who come from a Factorio background, Mindustry has less automation and more combat. Also a Mindustry map does not take 50 hours to complete; rather it will take a few hours and may sometimes take several tries as some maps can be fairly hard. Space is limited as compared to Factorio, so space-efficient designs do matter, especially for defense (you want to pack towers tightly, with the constraint that towers must be fed by a conveyor of ammo or a pipe of liquid, or both). You also need to consider that you often need different combinations of towers in order to defeat different types of enemies.
Overall, a very well-made game and very addictive.
Sounds like something I might try. Factorio has a tower defense element that never really works because the attacks are too small, my base is too large, and I always just wipe out the biter camps. That's an aspect of the game that clearly needs a lot more challenge, but lots of players just ignore it and build.
For my first half-dozen tries, I always built may bases far too compact. I really had to learn to use the space available to me. A game that rewards compact building might be just for me.
I find the new trend interesting, to sell the game on Steam, but have a link to Github with the actual source. So free for developers and people who care to find out. Thats fair, I think, but I would prefer if the direct donation model would be more established among the masses.
But this link points to the general site, with lots of options and also directly the free version. Kudos. Will try it out later.
It’s because it’s sold on Steam mostly for the features that directly integrate with Steam (like joining friend’s games). If you don’t care about that, the game is free :)
I noticed e.g. Cyberduck do the same. It's open source software, you can download it on the website for free. But if you want to have it one click on the App store it's $24.
It might have been free on Play Store a few years ago when I tried it, maybe just very cheap. I was looking for a fun game on my Amazon tablet after installing Play Store, and Mindustry delivered.
Thanks for the warning, I suppose it is - and that's why I stick to my guns and won't play it. Since playing Age of Empires II online around 2000 took such a heavy toll on my study habits to achieve a 2000+ rating at the time, my mantra goes by the saying: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". ;)
It’s funny how saying a game is addictive makes many people want to try it, but people like you and me take it as a warning. For me it’s because I succumb to addictions more easily than most.
This is funny to me and maybe worth mentioning. In prison they charge inmates for this game on the tablets, is that legal? It's AccessCorrections or Access something, I know for a fact, I played it for years and now hate it because of the associations it draws for my uneuphoric recall of doing time. They also charge for Andors Trail, another open source project.
It's legal to charge for distributions of GPL licensed projects. The OSI definition [1] specifically notes it's one of the freedoms in licenses considered open source.
Back in the mid 2000s I recall seeing drama about projects like The GIMP being repackaged and sold. While legal, the sellers exploited information asymmetry to profit from people unaware the software was available for free. The counterpoint is that distributors do work packaging the app -- maybe AccessConnections contributed some value by reviewing the content as a trusted third party.
So yeah, it's legal but might not be ethical. Open source licenses do require the source code and license to be accessible to the end user. This can be tucked away as a link in a credits screen. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm curious whether a link counts as source code distribution if you know your end users won't have unrestricted access to the Internet.
Just curious, but was it an US prison ?
I have trouble seeing them allowing the prisoners to play game.
Also, how are the prisoners supposed to make money to pay for the game ?
There are paid jobs in the prison for the inmates. They are not very good, but it's a thing. You can also send funds to an inmate's commissary account, if somebody you care about is in there.
I'm the opposite. Longtime Serpulo fan who really enjoyed the game and just can't stand the Erekir RTS style game at all. I don't want to build or direct troops in a Factorio game. That's literally the opposite of what I want.
Bummed at the direction of the game and how they abandoned Serpulo as they pivoted. Serpulo never got finished/balanced and likely never will now.
Me too - I've almost finished my second play through Serpulo, but Erekir didn't click with me at all.
--
My one observation/criticism is that as you progress through the game, it shifts through different stages, making the game very different to play:
Early - essentially start from nothing (or very little) on each map, balance mining and infrastructure development while simultaneously protecting yourself
Mid - usually not feasible to start from nothing, but taking resources with you to a new map often makes winning very easy
Late - you absolutely have to rely on massive external resources to stand a chance, meaning you have to spend a lot of time developing the infrastructure to ship resources to wherever you're playing next. (Also, the code that 'ships' resources between sectors seems unreliable and maybe buggy.)
I really enjoy the challenge of balancing within 'early'; mid is a lot duller, as is the infrastructure development.
I bought this game after playing the open source variant for some time. It was just what I wanted, because Factorio isn't focused so much on defence, but this is. The game underwent a huge overhaul and is much more fleshed out. I need to get back to it and try and complete the campaign.
This game will suck you in. It's wonderful. A great holiday game actually. Good timing on this post.
I first played it because I heard it described as "Factorio lite", which seems fairly apt after playing it. It's not nearly as deep as Factorio but it scratches the same itch.
Its PvP mode is also excellent. You can complete both defense and offense by laying supply lines. It's possible to ambush the opponent's supply lines as well, gaining a significant advantage on the front lines before the enemy detects the disruption in the power facility and logistics system. This is what I consider one of the most important characteristics of a real-time strategy (RTS) game.
It would be better if one could steal expensive components from the opponent's conveyor belt (like processors in Factorio)
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For those who come from a Factorio background, Mindustry has less automation and more combat. Also a Mindustry map does not take 50 hours to complete; rather it will take a few hours and may sometimes take several tries as some maps can be fairly hard. Space is limited as compared to Factorio, so space-efficient designs do matter, especially for defense (you want to pack towers tightly, with the constraint that towers must be fed by a conveyor of ammo or a pipe of liquid, or both). You also need to consider that you often need different combinations of towers in order to defeat different types of enemies.
Overall, a very well-made game and very addictive.
For my first half-dozen tries, I always built may bases far too compact. I really had to learn to use the space available to me. A game that rewards compact building might be just for me.
But this link points to the general site, with lots of options and also directly the free version. Kudos. Will try it out later.
https://github.com/Poussinou/FLOSS-Games-on-Steam
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/38475471-Libre-Open-S...
It's nothing new, and also exist in the tooling side of things
https://store.steampowered.com/app/431730/Aseprite/ - https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite
Deleted Comment
https://www.davx5.com/
Aseprite (pixel art editor) has this sort of “if you can build it you can have it” arrangement.
I wonder what percentage of would-be-paying users are getting it for free. I guess it’s probably significant but still nothing close to a majority.
Great game, though a bit addictive.
Back in the mid 2000s I recall seeing drama about projects like The GIMP being repackaged and sold. While legal, the sellers exploited information asymmetry to profit from people unaware the software was available for free. The counterpoint is that distributors do work packaging the app -- maybe AccessConnections contributed some value by reviewing the content as a trusted third party.
So yeah, it's legal but might not be ethical. Open source licenses do require the source code and license to be accessible to the end user. This can be tucked away as a link in a credits screen. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm curious whether a link counts as source code distribution if you know your end users won't have unrestricted access to the Internet.
[1]: https://opensource.org/osd/
Thanks in advance.
Erekir is automation plus RTS. Serpulo is automation plus tower defense.
Bummed at the direction of the game and how they abandoned Serpulo as they pivoted. Serpulo never got finished/balanced and likely never will now.
--
My one observation/criticism is that as you progress through the game, it shifts through different stages, making the game very different to play:
Early - essentially start from nothing (or very little) on each map, balance mining and infrastructure development while simultaneously protecting yourself
Mid - usually not feasible to start from nothing, but taking resources with you to a new map often makes winning very easy
Late - you absolutely have to rely on massive external resources to stand a chance, meaning you have to spend a lot of time developing the infrastructure to ship resources to wherever you're playing next. (Also, the code that 'ships' resources between sectors seems unreliable and maybe buggy.)
I really enjoy the challenge of balancing within 'early'; mid is a lot duller, as is the infrastructure development.
You won't like upcoming Industrial Annihilation then probably.
I first played it because I heard it described as "Factorio lite", which seems fairly apt after playing it. It's not nearly as deep as Factorio but it scratches the same itch.
It would be better if one could steal expensive components from the opponent's conveyor belt (like processors in Factorio)