Fantastic Factories is back on Kickstarter with two new expansions
Manufacture happiness.
Last year’s Fantastic Factories has returned to Kickstarter with a reprint and two brand new expansions, Manufactions and Subterfuge.
Fantastic Factories is a game for one to five players that revolves entirely around constructing and running various factories. The game was originally released in 2019, but is getting re-released thanks to a Kickstarter campaign that is also funding its first expansions.
The Manufactions expansion introduces a selection of factions for players to choose from at the start of the game, with each one offering a different set of resources and a unique power. Every faction power can be used to bolster a player’s strategy - for example, improving the trading action or reducing building costs. Manufactions also includes a collection of new blueprints for factories that produce vitamins, which can enable players to potentially get better dice rolls.
Subterfuge, meanwhile, contains elements to aid players in disarming their opponents, with the expansion’s premise revolving around companies indulging in shifty activities to get a one up on their rivals. With Subterfuge, players can acquire cards to prevent their opponents from successfully building a factory or to stop a completed factory from benefiting their rival. The affected player must assign one of their dice in order to start repairs and regain their factory.
Fantastic Factories is a beginner board game that sees players acquiring blueprints or paying contractors to start their factory empire. There are two phases in the game: the market phase and the work phase. Once players have obtained their blueprints in the market phase, they must roll their dice and assign them to obtain resources, which are required to build factories and produce products. When one player has either manufactured 12 goods or built 10 factories, the game ends and the player with the most points from buildings and products is named the winner.
In our review of the game last year, Sam Desatoff described Fantastic Factories as a “game of momentum” that provided players with a straightforward but engaging engine-building experience: “When all the parts are oiled up, Fantastic Factories runs just about flawlessly. It’s a refreshingly simple take on an historically-complex genre, making it the perfect entry point for budding engineers.”
Fantastic Factories was created by Joseph Z Chen and Justin Faulkner as the duo’s debut tabletop title. The board game was published by Deep Water Games and Metafactory Games, a company formed by the designers after its successful Kickstarter campaign in 2018.
The Kickstarter campaign for Fantastic Factories and the two new expansions is live until October 28th. A pledge of $79 (£62) gets backers a copy of the core game and both expansions. Alternatively, players who already own the core game can pledge $40 (£32) for just the expansions.