Drawer 05 · review
Mindustry
Factory building meets tower defence: conveyor belts feed your turrets while waves arrive.
Our score 4/5
Our take
Mindustry gives you a core, a patch of ore and a lot of conveyor belts. You build drills, route materials into factories and feed the results to turrets that hold off waves of enemies. It is a puzzle about logistics as much as defence, and the satisfaction of a tidy production line is the whole point.
The game is open source and free on mobile and through the indie store Itch, where you can name your own price, including nothing. The Steam version costs money and adds achievements and Workshop maps, but the game itself is the same.
It has twenty-four built-in maps, a map editor and multiplayer, but it is at its best as a calm solo puzzle on a small map.
A first sitting
- Get it from the official site, which links to every store.
- Start the campaign and follow the first sector closely; it teaches the basics.
- Pause the game whenever you need to plan: building works while paused.
Where to stop
Sectors end when you have survived their waves. Finish one sector, then stop; a second one always looks like it will only take five minutes.
