Factorio is a construction and management simulation game focused on resource gathering with

real-time strategy and survival elements.

The player survives by locating and harvesting resources to craft various tools and machines,

which in turn create more advanced materials that allow for the progression to more sophisticated

technologies.

The game was released in 2020 and has been hailed

as a manufacturing masterpiece. Factorio's space age expansion just released, so we took the

opportunity to speak with Mihao Kovorik, also known as Kovorex, who is the founder and director

of Wube Software, which developed Vactoreo. Miho joins the show with Joe Nash to talk about the origins of the game, the new expansion,

and everything in between.

Joe Nash is a developer, educator, and award-winning community builder, who has worked at

companies including GitHub, Twilio, Unity, and PayPal.

Joe got a start in software development by creating mods and running servers for Gary's mod.

And game development remains his favorite way to experience and explore new technologies and concepts. Mihail, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Hello, thank you for inviting me.

So as we covered, you are the creator of Factoria, which I'm sure many of our audience are familiar with.

But before we get into the game itself, I'd love to know what was your journey into game development?

What led to Factoria?

That's a very, very long answer to a simple question.

Basically, I'm, do you know the XKCD comics?

We're teaching at the university about some mathematical proofs, et cetera,

and the guy sitting there was like, oh, this is so complicated.

...