New Factorio rival Motemancer puts a magical twist on building games

One of my favorite things to do in any videogame is sit back and appreciate my work. Whether it's an intricate redstone contraption in Minecraft or the buzz of a metropolis in Cities Skylines, watching the fruits of my labor fills me with pride. Motemancer seeks to capture that very same feeling, and it just launched in Steam Early Access. It combines automation and fantasy into an experience that rivals the best, pushing your knowledge of its dense systems as far as it can go.

If you're a fan of automating foreign worlds in Factorio, Satisfactory, and Dyson Sphere Program, I can't recommend Motemancer enough. Like those games, your goal is to grow your manufacturing and production prowess with myriad tools, as you research new ways of dominating the land around you. But instead of raw grease and oil, Motemancer's got an all-new way of getting the job done: magic.

Instead of heading into space, you've got access to six overlapping Elemental planes. These are all procedurally generated and traversable in real time, meaning you can go between them at your leisure. Each plane also has its own resources and tools for you to use, incentivising you to bounce between them and discover the alchemical possibilities you can bring back with you. As far as our list of the best base building games goes, this might be the most unique yet.

As you explore in Motemancer, you're encouraged to engage in as much experimentation as possible. You can use spells, aspects, and plenty of magical structures to realize your vision, with elemental synergy possible at every turn. You can even use magic to nudge structures, float over terrain, and control the very sun itself. Whatever your grand designs are, Motemancer has a way to make them a reality.

Now that the game is out in Steam Early Access, developer Cyanavatar Studios has a lot more planned. You can expect new features like your starting plane being randomized, extra modifiers, and even mod support. There's also going to be improvements to the systems in the late game, which should give you more control over your automation.

If you'd rather try before you buy, there's a Motemancer demo available. It includes the first four to ten hours of the game, and you can even carry over your progress to the full experience if your system supports it. You can also explore early research possibilities across three of the game's elements, giving you more than enough ways to automate a magical slice of the world.

Motemancer is available via Steam Early Access right now. You can grab it at a 10% discount until Monday July 21, so expect to pay $26.99 / £22.49. Just head here.

If you want more, we've also got all the best sandbox games and fantasy games you need to check out.

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