A while ago I wrote about games that play themselves and why they’re a genre I really enjoy. The gist of that post is that there’s a type of game (Victoria 2 and Factorio were my examples) where the start of the game is an impossible grind against endless problems, but by the end you’ve automated most of your problems away and have created a self-sustaining system. The game eventually plays itself, without much needed for input.

Of course you can still have input, old challenges being automated away just means you can create new challenges for yourself. In Victoria, educating and industrializing your populace eventually meant they’d build factories and run the economy for your, but that meant you were now free to go map painting or play border police. Factorio’s late game gives you an army of bots who will upkeep and rebuilt the factory for you, but that means you can now focus on building the biggest base possible and researching the infinite techs.

I watched a video from youtuber tehsnakerer about Evil Genius and one of his complaints about the game seemed to be something I’d like, that by the end it plays itself. You start out trying to finagle minions and ensure your base is running smoothly, and once it is you can be a lot more hands off with the thing. He didn’t seem to like that and treated it as a negative, but I wonder if I’d enjoy it. I never played Evil Genius, but maybe I should give it a go.