How do you call these games that let you macro-manage people/creatures/processes and you can watch your engine run?
Examples are Rimworld, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Factorio.
I don’t like fast action-based RTS, micromanaging games, I just love to create a world and watch it running on it‘s own!
Is there a specific name for this mechanic? And what are your favorite examples?
Factorio. The factory must grow.
I usually call them management games. Looking at the Steam tags for Factorio and RimWorld, they both have “Management” and Factorio additionally has “Resource Management”. But I think “Management” is your best bet.
I think RTS games don’t usually fall under management and instead are just called RTS.
In terms of my favourite ones, I love FTL: Faster Than Light. I’m picking it up again at the moment actually. I also like RinWorld, Oxygen Not Included, and Dungeon of the Endless.
I don’t know if I would call FTL a process optimization game. One thing I feel like it’s missing is feedback if your process is being optimized or if you just got lucky. With Rimworld, Roller Coaster Tycoon, and Factorio all include metrics that allow you to judge if you’ve made your process better but because of FTLs randomness, it’s hard to determine if you played better or just had better rolls. That said I love FTL and it’s an amazing game.
I’ve played a good bit of FTL and never felt like I knew what I was doing.
Automation, procedural, visual programming. Or just world building game.
One example: https://store.steampowered.com/app/92800/SpaceChem/
Pretty much any game from that developer is procedural/automation related.
Ha, was just about to come recommend Zachtronics games. They’re more, uh, programm-y than the others being mentioned, but they definitely do center around process management
Settlers 2 (and the faithful remake Settlers 2: 10th Anniversary) is pretty old but is still one of my favorite economy building games
Some genre names would be: Colony Sim, Base Builder or City Builder.
Another great one is Dwarf Fortress, you should give it a try if you haven’t already. It probably has the most in depth simulation of any game there is.
It added actual graphics somewhat recently, you don’t need to stare at ascii anymore
https://store.steampowered.com/app/975370/Dwarf_Fortress/
In case you aren’t aware, the devs released a version with proper graphics now.
