A game by Owen Sample, Noah Leibert, Marcus Polson, and Nicholai Khitrykh
Artist’s Statement:
The original concept of Felix Producto was to create a hybrid analog/digital factory building game. The goal behind the hybridization was to have the analog board give players a concrete visualization of the puzzle, while the digital aspect could keep track of most of the rule burden, almost like acting as a digital dungeon master. The digital aspect would also provide an embedded narrative combining the distinct levels together into one coherent campaign. The concept behind the narrative was to create a dystopian, corporation-ruled future that has hired the player to design factories for them. Designing the factories would be the puzzles/gameplay, and as you progressed through the levels, it would eventually become clear that the company was evil and you were helping their cause.
Concept Map:
Systems Map:
Initial Decisions:
Originally, we planned to create a multiplayer cooperative game where players collectively solved puzzles and constructed a factory. As we considered player dynamics, such as how tasks are split between players and how rewarding this split is, we ultimately decided to convert to singleplayer. This allowed us to give the individual player full control of the strategy and choices tied to factory construction. Regarding values, we wanted players to have a way to reflect on the implications of the narrative and have an input in their character’s final choice. This was incorporated as the final choice presented upon completing the final level.
Game Scope:
The final submission represents an MVP. This is reflected in the game’s display of a full start-to-finish narrative and gameplay loop comprising five unique levels. Despite being an MVP, the game is also sufficiently polished, having well-balanced mechanics, unique art, and a complete story.
Level Design Intention:
From the start, we planned to create a limited but well-crafted set of levels. We worked to construct the levels in a way that taught the player the mechanics of the game and explored their intricacies while also not making the levels so challenging as to be overwhelming. This was a difficult balancing act, but we achieved this through onboarding techniques such as spreading out game mechanics between levels and having the player learn through play. With these considerations in mind, we decided to have a tutorial level, 3 levels in between that each introduce specific concepts, and one final level that acts as a culmination of everything you learned, along with a final test of puzzle-solving ability. In addition to this level breakdown, each level has two possible solutions. This choice gives players more freedom to experiment with their factories, while also adding a layer of depth and replayability to the game itself.
Individual Level Overview:
- Level 0: Tutorial level, introduces basic mechanics of the game
- Level 1: Introduces intermediary resources(resources in between the input and output resources)
- Level 2: Introduces recipe doubling (2x inputs to 2x outputs), makes it required to beat the level to ensure the player knows about it
- Level 3: Introduces more complex resource splitting and tracking, prepares player for final level
- Level 4: Final level, incorporates all previously learned mechanics into a compelling final challenge
Art Design System:
When developing the art, we started with a color scheme that reflected an industrial factory vibe while still allowing for enough variety of colors to distinguish between different game elements. We decided that yellow would generally indicate conveyors, orange would indicate credits (and arrows), and blue would indicate resources and/or recipes. The idea behind this was to have a component’s color immediately indicate its purpose and role, but these rules were often bent for the sake of visual clarity and personal art direction choices.
The design system documentation also provided icons for all of the game’s resources. These served as redundancy for text, allowing players to recognize materials at a glance without repeated reading. This document also included our fonts, which allowed us to have consistency between the components, rulebook, and website. Finally, the credit tokens, coming in variants of 1 credit and 5 credits, were designed to have differing colors and sizes to allow players to easily distinguish them. This document served as a helpful foundation in creating the game’s art, and was especially helpful in a collaborative team setting such as this one.
Digital Portal Design:
The digital portal was originally designed to host the narrative provided between levels and level information, including inputs, outputs, and credit count. In its earliest versions, it included branching story choices that led to levels of varying difficulty based on player input, as well as player-led round, phase, and credit tracking. As the physical game levels were fleshed out, we chose to drop branching levels and have a set path. Additionally, we majorly simplified the portal and removed the recipe index, credit counter, and round tracker. The removal of the recipe index stopped players from planning ahead and knowing their desired factory layout before progressing through rounds. The introduction of physical credits added another aspect of physical fun for the player and made the amount of credits spent or remaining easy to visualize. Levels were simplified to not have set rounds or phases, instead being treated as one long “round” where the player can take actions in any order. This allowed for more strategic gameplay and was more engaging for players than having to skip through round phases to take a certain action.
The final iteration of the digital portal added further quality of life and other useful features for players. These included PC and mobile support, an onboarding video, the Employee Value Score inputs and display, and the ability to save progress and continue. The website was also updated according to the art design system and was made to match the fonts and colors found in the rulebook and game components.
Testing and Iteration History:
Playtests 1 & 2:
Players: classmates unfamiliar with the game but with factory game experience
Positives:
- The core mechanics of factory building and round phases were understood, no clarification was needed.
- Players understood the goal and how to reach it, taking the time to strategize and think ahead to future recipe and conveyor placement.
- Puzzle mechanics and overall concept were well received and provided sufficient challenge.
Analysis and Changes Made:
- While the players understood the core mechanics and goal of the game, the specific rules and aspects of the game were overwhelming. Machine, recipe, and conveyor placement positions and properties required repeated clarification and caused confusion.
- We combined machines and recipes into just recipes, simplifying the factory building process. (Originally, recipes were assigned to machines, and machines cost money to place) We also specified conveyor rules, such as placement being confined to tile edges and the allowing of conveyor bridges.
- The rules were updated to include costs for recipe placement and movement. The starting credits per round were also lowered. These changes made players consider their choices more wisely and promoted strategic gameplay.
- A rulebook was created that provided information on objectives, possible moves in a given round or phase, recipe and conveyor functionality, and further game information. The digital portal was also created to provide round information and a round tracker.
Playtests: 3 & 4
Players: previous playtesters (1) and Alex, Noah’s roommate with ~120 hrs on Satisfactory
Positives:
- Levels were interesting and engaging, required thought and strategy
- Level 0 good introduction/tutorial, simple enough to complete
- Difficulty in general seems balanced
- Had fun with the puzzle
- All actions and recipe mechanics were made use of at least once
Analysis and Changes Made:
- No deliberation on Cost: Credits were simply not a limiting resource. Reduced starting credits/round and added more powerful optional outputs to make levels still doable within the round limit.
- Originally, any puzzle not placed on the gameboard would be discarded after the round. If you missed a required recipe, it would be incredibly punishing, impossible to cycle back through the entire recipe deck within the round limit. The discard pile was first reworked to cycle faster, and then was eventually removed entirely. To eliminate missing a needed recipe, the recipe deck now had a preset order.
- When players were given a level index listing all recipes, they would study the index and plan their factory ahead instead of discovering recipes one by one as intended. The recipe index was removed entirely from the rules and digital portal. Level index functionality (inputs, outputs, credits) was moved to the digital portal. There is no mechanism for players to preview Recipes other than the Print and Play. We also decided to limit how many recipes could be bought and not placed to prevent buying the entire recipe deck to preview recipes.
- Reading rules was a chore, so we created an onboarding video that fit with the game’s theme and introduced key mechanics.
Playtests: 6 & 7
Players: classmates with no factory or puzzle game experience
Positives:
- Mechanics became intuitive after thorough explanations (would eventually be provided by the rule video)
Analysis and Changes Made:
- The round system was notoriously difficult to understand and keep track of. We decided to pivot to an open system where any action could be performed at any time in any order so long as you could pay its credit cost. This change streamlined rules significantly and reduced confusion about possible actions.
- Credits were changed to be granted at the start of each level, not each round. This eliminated late-game waiting for enough credits to connect conveyors.
- Optional outputs were changed to give a one-time additional credit boost and started on the board, not as part of the recipe deck.
- Up until this point, all credit tracking was digital, and players routinely got so involved with the puzzle they would forget about the digital portal entirely. Credits were made analog, and the digital portal was reduced to narrative and level setup.
- The lose condition is running out of credits (previously exceeding round cap)
Playtests 8 – 10
Players: (9), rarely plays puzzle games, prefers Minecraft. (8) plays puzzles occasionally (10 – Quinn) plays many many many types of games including puzzles
Positives:
- The new round-less structure was remarkably easier to understand than the round system.
- All mechanics were used as intended, including optional outputs and storage of recipes not yet placed.
- Players assumed conditions that were not explicitly stated in the rules but made intuitive sense during gameplay (these would later be explicitly added to the rules).
- Updated their strategies as more recipes were revealed.
- They all had fun playing the game instead of being confused by gameplay.
- Levels got adequately more difficult as they progressed. Level 0 (tutorial) was approachable. Additional mechanics and more recipes made later levels more difficult.
- Game sense was vastly increased between level 0 and level 1.
Analysis and Changes Made:
- Conveyor rules were wordy and unclear. Much of this would be reworded, and images would be included to eliminate any misunderstandings. (Including the plague of conveyors not being placed on the yellow borders. This clause was bolded, and images were provided to support it).
- Setup was made clearer in the rules. Final possible solutions were deemed necessary for players to test their work against. This would be included in both the Digital Portal (intro video) and at the end of each level.
- The rules video was limited and poorly made. Script would be rewritten to cover more rules, and it would eventually be refilmed.
- A refund mechanic for removing split/curved conveyors was added to increase flexibility and ability to fix mistakes.
Playtests 11 & 12
Playtesters: previous playtesters and a non-experienced gamer
What was good:
- Proved levels 3 and 4 were indeed solvable
- Rules were easy to understand and well written.
- No clarity questions were ever asked about the rules.
- The game was playable and fun.
Analysis and changes made:
- The board was deemed too small to not allow for merging conveyors and resource sharing. Both were added as allowed in the rules, along with images to clarify their creation. Also allowed for resource transfer through adjacent recipes to reduce space needed on board.
Behind-the-scenes Bugs
Throughout playtests, players would routinely place conveyors on game board tiles, not on the borders. We eventually made the borders wider and added images to the rules to express where the conveyors were supposed to be placed, and added yellow color as an easter egg (Butch gets annoyed when yellow paint marks where to go).
Full Release Additions
If we were to ever move past an MVP, we would not only add more polish and detail to components (eg. art on the outside of the game board instead of simply grey borders) but also add more levels that introduce new mechanics. Since there would be more levels, the narrative would be more evenly divided across more levels instead of one giant monologue at the very end.
Print and Play
To enjoy the game at home, print this PDF double sided on letter paper.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1plCO4jRTmdUBpbJnNK2eU-UVo6j3lWRK/view?usp=sharing
Digital Portal Website:
https://nkhitrykh.github.io/felix-producto/
Digital Portal GitHub Repo:
https://github.com/nkhitrykh/felix-producto
Final Playtest
Timestamps:
Rules video is useful (17:45): The video onboarding effectively bridges the gap between abstract text and practical execution. By demonstrating mechanics through concrete examples, it lowers the learning curve and allows the player to quickly grasp core mechanics without trouble. Rewarding payoff for earlier difficulties (1:24:00): The payoff for earlier levels is good, which encourages people to keep going. Level 4’s difficulty (2:03:30): “Starting to see why you gave such a large budget.” The budget increase subtly foreshadows the puzzle’s true scale. What initially feels like a surplus quickly reveals itself as an intentionally calibrated resource pool for complex trial-and-error, proving the economy effectively communicates rising difficulty without overt hand-holding. How the story fits (2:30:00): “I like that it’s a complacency game; factory and complacency games work well together.” The main story goes well with the design of the story. The Hard-Earned Payoff (~3:08:00 – ~3:11:00): “I might have figured it out” … Beats level 4. The final payoff is incredibly rewarding, and level 4 delivers as an excellent final challenge.
GenAI Disclosure
The only use of generative AI in this game is the website’s code. All other content was made by hand.
