I find that with games like these I initially get totally sucked in, and then a short while later realise that what I'm doing (designing, optimizing, solving problems within constraints) is effectively identical to my day job and if I'm going to be spending brainpower on it I might as well be getting paid.

Oh I dunno, I let it take over my life for a couple months, took it as far as I'd care to, and then moved on.

I actually prefer Dyson Sphere Program over factorio at this point.

They're addictive, but for good reason and in ways you don't realize until you experience it.

In case you still want in on the action and don't mind another game, Mindustry is also fantastic. Combined with a tower defense gameplay, its factory mechanics are easier and it's broken into levels which are much shorter than a typical Factorio playthrough.

https://mindustrygame.github.io/

Same here. As much as work, reading, wife, outdoor sports, etc, don't allow me to have a lot of free time for "useless" things like videogames and specifically Factorio, I have a feeling that this one would pull me in and have me spend possibly hundreds of hours per year playing it, which I know I don't want and... well, shouldn't, given my self-appointed priorities in life.

I am particularly interested in strategic videogames, and loved playing these when I was a kid and a young adult (Master of Magic, Master of Orion 2, Civilization, etc).

Factorio seems to be particularly interesting and challenging at the same time.

Look at the tabs on the top. It generates the blueprints, but you can also see a link to a browser-render of the blueprint.

You click "compile" in the top right then after the log outputs everything you go to the blueprint page and click "open in fbe".

Or for Minecraft. Probably Verilog to Minecraft has been done already.

How would the clock work for that? wouldn't want part of the "die" to fall out of sync because someone stopped to grab a meal or fight an crazed boomrat.