Kaizen: A Factory Story

Sadly, this game seems unfinished. The puzzles are great, but the last act comes out of nowhere, increases the difficulty exponentially and suddenly ends the interesting story (set during the "baburu keiki" era in Japan). And the ending itself... it leaves so many plot threads open that, even now, I hope it is just a "bad ending" and the creators are planning to add a better one later on (even if it is just a en epilogue where you can actually make use of the objects you receive during the game and give a proper sendoff to the characters you have created relationships with). I was still going to recommend this game because of the Zachtronics gameplay. Yet, the more I think about all the missed opportunities with the story, the toolset that stops evolving at the halfway point, the nonsensical achievements (that ask you to win a mediocre pachinko-inspired minigame 10 times)... the more I believe this game needs to be sent back to the kitchen, so that it can spend more time in the oven...

A nice engineering game, scratching the same itch most Zachtronics games did. The controls are intuitive, and you can get the hang of building factories pretty quickly. The timeline UI felt weird at first, but I realized how great it is after reaching the harder levels. Rather than imagining how things will look after several steps, or using breakpoints, you can just jump to a point in time and take a look. Within some limitats, you can even edit things, so it's easy to fix things that are just slightly off. I'm writing this just after completing the main story, which should give you an idea about how long it takes to finish it. I didn't try to speedrun it, but I also didn't spend much time optimizing yet. (I did spend some time on the solitaire, though.) I can't help but compare this game to similar Zachtronics games. It doesn't feel as deep as those games. It doesn't have the same kind of synergies between game mechanics that keep optimization interesting and make you try diffe...

THey said they didn't want to keep making Zachtronics games, that they felt trapped into the genre. So they created another studio to make other games... and they did a Zachtronics again :D I don't know how much they enjoyed doing it, but I sure as hell enjoyed playing it. The zach vibe is back, baby! If you liked Space Chem, Opus Magnum, Exa Punks, Moleksyntez, or honestly any Zachtronics games, play Kaizen!

If you are new to the genre then this game is probably a good start - the game is really approachable, has nice story, music and visuals. Solitaire minigame is also quite fun as usual. If you played another zachtronics games you'll probably be dissapointed with this one. Both mechanics and puzzles are very simple and for 80% of the time could fall into a tutorial category. Some of the later puzzles have a lot of space for optimization but if you go for any working solution you can figure it out in no time. The "weekly challenge" puzzles so far seem to be quite good though so with time the ratio of hard/easy puzzles would probably improve. For now, if you like the concept of the game but want something actually challenging then probably better get Opus Magnum, a magnificent game from the same people but way more complex and challenging.

So much stupid story and dialogue for an automation puzzle game, some of it unskippable. The puzzles are ok, although not as interesting or innovative as Opus Magnum, but the sheer amount of story crap ruins it.

It is simpler than the "other Zachtronics game" true, but it's not less enjoyable IMO, it's good for widding down and drifting into the comfort zone of things never failing, but just not being as optimal as they could be. Finding a solution just the beginning, optimizing becomes the goals, you redo your whole setup to try to shave 1 welder and bang after 30 min you realize it was for nothing... oh wait maybe if i move this one track before etc etc. You got less tools, but that pushes creative thinking and avoids IMO to get lost into overly complex design. The story and theme is very pleasant, nostalgia of a past most of us didn't really lived, simpler times *allegedly*.

Enjoy Zachtronics puzzle games? You'll love this! Lovely story.

Simple and approachable, would be a great introductions to the world of Zachtronics. The harder story-mode puzzles still take some effort even for someone experienced and the optional puzzles can get downright hard.

I started my career as a Manufacturing Engineer developing Automated Machines at a Japanese company. "Kaizen: A Factory Story" definitely reminded me of some of my experiences during those formative first 3 years of my career and is an excellent puzzle game. After watching Northernlion play this, I immediately knew I had to try it out. I love the passive competitive gameplay where your process is charted over other player's solutions comparing the amount of process steps, cost and area. It drives home the mindset of Kaizen (continuous improvement) by encouraging you to optimize your process to be in the upper percentile of solutions. Though some of the tools feel limited, I think the basic set of tools encourages a player to get creative solving puzzles with the actuators, cutters and tracks. I play on Steam Deck, which works fine once you create a layout for it. I wish there was better support for smaller screens as the text can be hard to read. If you like puzzle games, are a nerd...

Despite being kind of on the fence about this one, I'll give it the thumbs up. It's just barely unique enough within the Zachtronics canon to justify its existence, and you know what? I think this pachinko solitaire is the best mandatory solitaire variant yet.