Old flash puzzler Manufactoria may have vanished with the demise of Adobe Flash, but developer PleasingFungus Games has made a sequel or reboot or whatever you want to call it: Manufactoria 2022. Released just this week on Steam, it’s a puzzler where you arrange conveyors and machines to program, deprogram, and reprogram robots. As the campaign bears on, you move into larger spaces and build more complex factories.
If you remember, and liked, the original Flash game then you’ll probably quite like this revival. It’s decorated with a bit of uplifting story and a few interesting, funny character designs to boot.
I played a few hours of the game today and found it to be a cute, lightweight series of programming and logic puzzles. It’s similar to the intense thinking puzzlers of games from developers like Zachtronics, but it also really wants you to enjoy the ride. No dark, brooding themes and it doesn’t have quite the same aggressive difficulty curve.
Unlike other games in the genre, I did feel that it focuses more on optimal solutions than a big, weird sandbox where you can build stupid stuff—though as the campaign goes on you can definitely do more optimization puzzling if that’s your bag.
You can find Manufactoria 2022 on Steam.