Fantastic Factories: A Dice Placement Engine Building Game (Kickstarter Special )

Board Game Geek Rating: 5.61
Board Game Geek Avg Player Rating: 7.79
Players: 1 to 5
Published: 2020
Content Notes: Kickstarter Edition of Fantastic Factories by Deep Water Games. Includes core game, Kickstarter promo pack #1, and all other unlocked stretch goals. Please note: unless otherwise stated paid add ons from the Kickstarter Campaign are not included.

Race against other players as you try to build the most efficient set of factories in the shortest amount of time. You must carefully manage your blueprints, train your workers, and manufacture as many goods as possible in order to achieve industrial dominance!

Fantastic Factories is a dice placement, engine building tabletop game for 1 to 5 players and takes 45 to 60 minutes to play. Players build a set of factories into their compound and then roll dice to use as workers. With over 35 different blueprints, you can discover endless inventive and creative ways your factories can work together. 

Different factories have different worker requirements. Some require a pair of matching dice. Some require a specific value. You aren’t stuck with what you roll, though. With training facilities you can manipulate the values of your dice in order to figure out the optimal placement of all your workers! Each turn is a satisfying puzzle to solve. 

• 28 dice (16mm) (4 red, 4 blue, 4 green, 4 yellow, 4 purple, and 8 white)
• 50 energy resource tokens
• 30 metal* resource tokens (*clarification: represents metal resources in the game but made out of chipboard)
• 85 goods tokens
• 4 tool label tokens
• 78 blueprint cards
• 18 contractor cards
• 1 first player token
• 5 player boards and player aids

Fantastic Factories comes with over 40 unique blueprint and contractor cards, ensuring each game is a fresh and new experience with lots of replayability.

Promo Cards

Kickstarter backers will also receive 5 promotional cards FREE! After the Kickstarter campaign these cards will only be available at conventions or through other exceptional means. 

Please note that the art and components are not completely finalized and may change slightly.

In Fantastic Factories, your goal is to build the most prestigious buildings and manufacture the most goods. Players start with 4 blueprints and some resources (1 metal, 2 energy). Players also have 4 colored dice that act as their workers.

Market Phase

Each round begins with the market phase. On your turn you either select a face-up blueprint to add into your hand for free or discard a card to hire the corresponding contractor. Contractors have unique effects that allow you do things such as roll additional dice or gain resources. 

Once all players have taken a turn, the work phase begins. 

Work Phase

During the work phase players take their turns simultaneously. You start by rolling your dice. Then you can take various actions in any order. 

You can place your workers on a set of basic actions to gain more resources or draw cards:

You can build cards by discarding another card with the same tool symbol and paying the resource cost: 

And finally you can activate your cards (yes, even on the same turn you built it!). Training facilities help you get the correct value workers to run your factories. 

Once all players are finished with their turns, the round is complete, and another one begins with the market phase again. If any players have manufactured 12 or more goods or have built 10 or more cards, the following round is the final round.

Solo Game

Fantastic Factories supports playing solo. You still get to build awesome combinations of factories and strategize where best to place your workers. The only difference is you will be competing against a simple but efficient opponent known as “The Machine”. The Machine is easily managed and guided by dice rolls and can be adjusted for varying levels of challenge. More details can be found in the rulebook. 

Fantastic Factories is that perfect mix of approachability and strategic depth. The mechanics and rules are simple but the creative combinations of factories and numerous ways you can manipulate your dice make each game feel new and fresh. We’ve played the game more than 300 times, and we still enjoy playing it. 

With simultaneous play, each game takes an hour or less so you know you’ll be able to get it to the table time and time again and even play games back to back. With so many viable strategies to pursue, you’ll be exploring the depths of Fantastic Factories for many games.

What are stretch goals? Meeting our funding goal allows us to place an order with our manufacturer for the minimum order quantity. However, the more quantity we order, the cheaper it is to manufacture each individual copy. We reinvest these savings into upgrading the components of the game. That means the more funding we receive, the better the game will be for you! Sharing this project with people you know helps us improve the game.

Please note that our stretch goals for the game itself are component upgrades ONLY. We do not believe in additional content or gameplay as stretch goals because we have thoroughly play tested the game with all the content that we believe is necessary for a balanced game and the best possible gameplay experience. No more. No less.

It’s a manufacturing arms race! Compete against other players as you try to build the most efficient set of factories in the shortest amount of time. You must carefully manage your blueprints, train your workers, and manufacture as many goods as possible in order to achieve industrial dominance!

In Fantastic Factories, you race to manufacture the most goods or build the most prestigious buildings. There are elements of dice rolling, worker placement, engine building, resource management, tableau building, simultaneous play, and some card drafting. Each round is split into two phases, the market phase and the work phase.

During the market phase, you choose to either acquire a new blueprint for free or pay to hire a contractor. Blueprints are used to construct new factories during the work phase. Contractors can be used to reinforce your strategy by providing resources or allowing you to roll additional dice. You need to be mindful of what cards are available in the marketplace and the strategies your opponents may be pursuing.

During the work phase, all players simultaneously roll their dice and use their dice as workers to run factories. Factories start as blueprints and need to be constructed. Once constructed, each factory can be used once each turn. Worker placement can happen in any order and figuring out the correct sequence can enable a powerful chain of actions. Additionally, you can build training facilities that allow you to manipulate the dice values of your workers. Each work phase is like solving a unique worker placement puzzle in order to optimize your output of resources and goods.

Once any player has manufactured 12 goods or constructed 10 buildings, the game end is triggered and one additional and final round is played. The player with the most points wins (combination of building prestige and manufactured goods). With over 30 unique blueprints and countless synergies across buildings, each game is unique. Fantastic Factories offers a lot of replay value and satisfaction as players discover new factory engines with each game.

–from the publisher

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