Awesome Engineering Games

A curated list of some of the best engineering games on PC. All titles are rated Very Positive or higher on Steam, unless they're newer games waiting for enough reviews.

Games are divided into broad categories based on the type(s) of engineering they're most related to, such as civil engineering & city-building, transportation & route-building, computer science & electrical engineering, etc. See the Table of Contents for a full breakdown of categories.

Feel free to suggest new games or update existing titles! For now, please create a new Issue (or Pull Request if you know how). Easier submissions and better instructions are coming soon.

Ratings & Tags Explained

❤️ = "Overwhelmingly Positive" overall reviews on Steam, meaning >= 95% of 500+ reviewers liked it.
👍 = Curator's Choice: Personal recommendations by the maintainers(s) of this list. This is a TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE "best of" for each category.
☁️ = Playable on GeForce Now. You can stream this game from the cloud without PC gaming hardware (no GPU required). Works in your browser and most OSes.
🛠️ = Playable but still in Early Access
👥 = Multiplayer co-op
🥊 = Multiplayer competitive / PvP
🎮 = Has full or partial controller support
🆓 = Free to play (possibly with in-app purchases)
🌱 = Newer game (less than ~1 year old and/or < ~100 reviews). These are included to give them exposure and early reviews. They stay on the list if they reach Very Positive.

All games (except the newer ones) have at least "Very Positive" overall reviews on Steam, meaning >= 80% of 50+ reviewers liked it.

Newly-released games
Factory Management & Automation
- Factory Building
- Puzzle & Casual
Vehicle Building
City Builders & Civil Engineering
Transportation & Route Management
Survival & Settlement Builders, Colony Sims
Open-World Survival Sandboxes
Bridge-Building
Rube Goldberg Machines
Hacking, Computer Science, Logic & Automation
- Automation with Coding
- Electrical Engineering
Job Simulators & Unique Themes
Narrative Storytelling Games
Everything else
Contributors & Credits

This Table of Contents was auto-generated by DocToc via toc-generator

Newly-released games

These are newer engineering games that were recently released on Steam and don't have enough reviews yet. They're included here to give them exposure and a chance to accrue reviews, up to about 100 reviews or about a year or so after release, whichever comes first. They'll stay on the list if they reach Very Positive in that time.

August 8, 2023: Lambda Spellcrafting Academy in Hacking, Computer Science, Logic & Automation

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Factory Management & Automation

These games emphasize the building of assembly lines that consume input resources in order to produce output goods, often with multiple chains of inputs to intermediary outputs.

Factory Building

This subcategory has games that involve building an actual factory, usually by manually mining resources first and then slowly adding automation.

Year	Title	Tags ?	Curator's Thoughts	Steam Description
2023	Techtonica	🛠️👥🎮	Satisfactory underground with more emphasis on story	Techtonica is a first-person factory automation game set beneath the surface of an alien planet. Work alone or in co-op to build factories, gather resources, research new technologies, mold the destructible terrain, establish a base of operations, and uncover long-forgotten secrets.
2023	Desynced: Autonomous Colony Simulator	🛠️☁️👥🥊🎮		Desynced is a sci-fi strategy game with fully customizable units and behaviors. Gather, build, research, and explore the unknown. Alone or with friends, unveil the mystery of an AI on the edge of self-awareness and uncover the hidden truth in this blend of strategy, automation, and exploration.
2021	Learning Factory	🛠️		Build and manage production systems to craft and sell goods to cats and finally achieve Catopia where all the systems are operating at peak efficiency. Machine Learning for sales, multi-layered generated maps, thoughtful complex gameplay, and a relaxing atmosphere are included.
2021	Factory Town	🎮		Build, automate, and optimize a giant factory on 3D terrain using conveyor belts, trains, chutes, pipes, and airships. Sell your goods to nearby villages to expand their borders, increase happiness, and unlock even better technology!
2021	Dyson Sphere Program	🛠️❤️👍☁️	Curator's Choice (arcataroger): Factorio in space, but with much better 3D graphics and the ability to expand across planets and solar systems.	Build the most efficient intergalactic factory in space simulation strategy game Dyson Sphere Program! Harness the power of stars, collect resources, plan and design production lines and develop your interstellar factory from a small space workshop to a galaxy-wide industrial empire.
2020	Satisfactory	🛠️❤️☁️👥		Satisfactory is a first-person open-world factory building game with a dash of exploration and combat. Play alone or with friends, explore an alien planet, create multi-story factories, and enter conveyor belt heaven!
2019	Space Engineers	☁️👥🥊🎮		Space Engineers is a sandbox game about engineering, construction, exploration and survival in space and on planets. Players build space ships, space stations, planetary outposts of various sizes and uses, pilot ships and travel through space to explore planets and gather resources to survive.
2019	Mindustry	❤️👥🥊		An open-ended factory management game with RTS and tower defense elements.
2016	Factorio	❤️👍☁️👥🎮	Curator's Choice (arcataroger): The game that popularized the genre after Minecraft mods pioneered it. Base game is incredibly deep, with lots to optimize. Mods add even more.	Factorio is a game about building and creating automated factories to produce items of increasing complexity, within an infinite 2D world. Use your imagination to design your factory, combine simple elements into ingenious structures, and finally protect it from the creatures who don't really like you.

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Puzzle & Casual

These games distill the genre down to its core, stripping away the manual resource management and focusing on routing & automation.

Year	Title	Tags ?	Curator's Thoughts	Steam Description
2020	shapez	❤️👍	Curator's Choice (arcataroger): A minimalist Factorio with an emphasis on conveyor belts. Free in-browser demo available at https://shapez.io/	shapez is a game about building factories to automate the creation and processing of increasingly complex shapes across an infinitely expanding map.
2019	MOLEK-SYNTEZ			Use the MOLEK-SYNTEZ to create small molecules with various pharmacological effects from the comfort of your small Romanian apartment.
2017	Opus Magnum	❤️👍☁️	Curator's Choice (arcataroger): Another minimalist take on the genre, distilling it down into symbols and automated pickers, sorters, and movers on rails.	Opus Magnum is the latest open-ended puzzle game from Zachtronics, the creators of SpaceChem, Infinifactory, and SHENZHEN I/O. Design and build machines that assemble potions, poisons, and more using the alchemical engineer’s most advanced tool: the transmutation engine!
2015	Infinifactory	❤️☁️		Infinifactory is a sandbox puzzle game by Zachtronics, the creators of SpaceChem and Infiniminer. Build factories that assemble products for your alien overlords, and try not to die in the process.
2011	SpaceChem	❤️		Zachtronics is back with an ambitious new design-based puzzle game. Take on the role of a Reactor Engineer working for SpaceChem, the leading chemical synthesizer for frontier colonies. Construct elaborate factories to transform raw materials into valuable chemical products!

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Vehicle Building

These games let you create your own vehicle (whether a car, ship, aircraft, or otherwise) from parts and then simulate its driving behaviors. Some have combat, while others are peaceful.

Year	Title	Tags ?	Curator's Thoughts	Steam Description
2023	The Last Starship			he Last Starship is a space ship construction game, currently in Alpha. Pick a ship hull, kit her out with engines, life-support, sensors and railguns and start your galactic adventure. Expect free updates every 6 weeks as we flesh out our vision for the game.
2023	Mars First Logistics	🛠️❤️👥🎮		Build physically simulated rovers and transport awkwardly shaped cargo across the surface of Mars. Earn funds, unlock new parts, and use your ingenuity to help the martians establish a new home. Playable solo or in online co-op!
2023	Juno: New Origins	🎮		Bring to life anything you can imagine from rockets and airplanes to cars and more. Automate them with a visual programming language. Explore 3D planets and make your own. Share your creations online. Complete contracts, conquer milestones, and unlock technology in the newly added Career Mode.
2023	Brick Rigs	☁️🥊🎮		Build your own vehicles or download one of the more than 200,000 creations already uploaded to the Workshop and experience the dynamic driving and destruction physics of Brick Rigs!
2022	NEBULOUS: Fleet Command	🛠️👥🥊		Take command of your hand-tailored fleet of space warships and use realistic radar, electronic warfare, advanced movement controls in 3D space, and precision targeting to outmaneuver and outwit your opponents in a simulation-heavy tactical space game like no other.
2022	RoboCo	👍🛠️	Curator's Choice (gene-h): It has one of the best mechanism simulators I've seen in a game with all sorts of gears, differentials, slider joints, springs etc. I've found it handy for virtually prototyping, you can mock up and test machine concepts much faster than CAD software.	RoboCo is a sandbox game about designing and building robots to serve the needs of squishy, hapless humans in the world of tomorrow!
2021	HighFleet		Building sideways 2D armed ships in a dusty, future/soviet theme	Battle for survival in the skies of a mysterious future Earth in this unique action-strategy game mixing arcade combat, exploration, management and diplomacy. As giant flying ships wage spectacular aerial warfare, a prophecy tells of one who will save the world – could it be you?
2021	Sprocket	🛠️		Carefully balance mobility, firepower and armour in a dedicated tank designer. Then uncarefully put them to the test in a series of combat scenarios progressing through the ages of the tank. Here, your limit is what you can fit inside your hull and turret while still being able to move forwards.
2021	Main Assembly	☁️👥🥊🎮		You’re the designer, engineer and architect if you can imagine it you can create it! Construct robots of any shape or size from eight-legged spider bots to eerie UFO contraptions.
2020	Stormworks: Build and Rescue	☁️👥🥊🎮		Join a world where you design, create and pilot your own air sea rescue service. Release your inner hero as you battle fierce storms out at sea to rescue those in need.
2020	From the Depths	👥🥊🎮