Satisfactory, the factory-building game so compelling it has invaded my dreams

An addictive example of a burgeoning genre, its elaborate widgets and logistics demand long shifts that have re-engineered my unconscious mind

Everyone knows about the Tetris effect, named after the puzzle game that is so compelling players can find themselves visualising falling blocks and imagining how real-world objects could fit together long after turning off the Game Boy. Similarly, playing too much Burnout or Grand Theft Auto gave some of my uni friends pause before they got behind the wheel in real life. But few video games are so enthralling that they begin to invade one’s subconscious. I would like to nominate a new candidate for this dubious pantheon: a factory-building game called, beautifully, Satisfactory.

Satisfactory is part of an emerging genre of factory games. They’re like a jacked-up version of survival-crafting games such as Minecraft. You craft things that build widgets you can use to build other things, in order to accomplish some far-off goal … except the quantities of things needed are so ridiculously large that you need to automate it. So you set down extractors and feed raw materials into other machines via conveyor belts, and pretty soon you have a whole mini-factory ticking along, happily producing screws or plates or whatever while you run off to rig up another project elsewhere.