Transforming the useless, pristine land into a marvel of smoggy industry.
Yes. This is what I want.
Minecraft: Java Edition pulled me in with its "craft" component, of which the "mine" component was a formulaic pre-requisite. To me, SpaceChem wasn't just a super-challenging, science-based puzzle game, but a method of implementing parallel, programmatic logic in the form of a virtual assembly line. And many years ago - in the vaguest of my gaming memories - I recall a shareware game, whose title I can't remember, about managing assembly lines on a factory floor, for similar purposes of correctly and efficiently forming inputs into outputs.
If I were to navel-gaze on this, I'm pretty sure it would reduce to the same thing that drives my interest in computer programming, ... which is probably related to a God-complex or some other ego thing. But my point is -- creation is fascinating to me, and so creating things which create other things just makes my entire brain light up. Not in a seizure way, but, you know, in a fun way. And Factorio is exactly that: not just gathering materials, but building machinery with those materials, and using that machinery to gather even more materials, and build more machinery, et cetera ad infinitum?
I am somewhat intrigued by what might be the goal or objective of the final game, re: finding a spaceship, or hunting aliens, or -- whatever. But even without that, Factorio is easily the most fun I've had in a crafting-centric game thus far. Forget building weapons and armor in Terraria, or making underwater cities in Minecraft; industry is what I want, and Factorio obliges.
Progress: Finished the demo mini-campaign