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.
Table of Contents
- Newly-released games
- Factory Management & Automation
- 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
- 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
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. |
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! |
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 | 👥🥊🎮 | Over 1000 unique components allow you to build and command voxel vehicles from the deep ocean to outer space! Forge strategies, allegiances and fleets strong enough to destroy eight deadly factions of the planet and reign supreme. A genre-defying mashup of simulation, building, RTS and RPG. | |
| 2020 | Besiege | ❤️☁️👥🥊 | Besiege is a physics based building game in which you construct medieval siege engines. Battle your way through a 54 level singleplayer campaign, unleash chaos with your friends in multiplayer, create your own worlds with the level editor, customize your game with mods through the workshop. | |
| 2020 | Avorion | ☁️👥🥊 | A procedural co-op space sandbox where players can build their own space ships out of dynamically scalable blocks. Fight epic space battles, explore, mine, trade, wage wars and build your own empire to save your galaxy from being torn apart by an unknown enemy. | |
| 2019 | Trailmakers | ☁️👥🥊🎮 | Build the ultimate vehicle and explore a vast open world filled with challenges and adventure. Play solo or team up with friends in multiplayer to conquer the toughest obstacles. With a thrilling campaign mode and endless creative possibilities, Trailmakers is the ultimate sandbox for adventurers. | |
| 2018 | TerraTech | 👥🥊🎮 | Very streamlined and surprisingly deep, although the campaign gameplay can be frustrating. | TerraTech is an open-world, sandbox adventure game, where you design and build your own creations through a mix of crafting, combat and discovery. Design vehicles from a huge library of blocks. Scavenge, craft and buy new parts to survive and become the ultimate planetary prospector. |
| 2018 | Airships: Conquer the Skies | 🥊 | Construct mighty steampunk airships and fly them into battle, waging war and conquering the skies! | |
| 2016 | Scrap Mechanic | 🛠️☁️👥🎮 | Enter the creative paradise of Scrap Mechanic! Build fantastic machines, go on adventures with your friends and defend against waves of evil Farmbots in this imaginative multiplayer survival sandbox. With Scrap Mechanic’s powerful creation tools you can engineer your own adventures! | |
| 2015 | SimplePlanes | Build airplanes by snapping parts together, designing wing sections, and attaching engines. At any time, you can strap yourself into the cockpit and see how it flies with realistic physics. If you're not in the mood for building, over 100,000 airplanes are available to download for free. |
City Builders & Civil Engineering
These games have a primary focus on city building and utilities infrastructure (electricity, sewer, water, garbage, etc.). They are a typically blend of planning and economy management.
There is a separate category, Transportation, for games that primarily deal with route-building without the accompanying city and economy management.
Modern & Near-Future
These take place in the modern, post-industrial era with modern vehicles and power grids.
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Terra Nil | ☁️ | Terra Nil is an intricate environmental strategy game about transforming a barren wasteland into a thriving, balanced ecosystem. Bring life back to a lifeless world by purifying soil, cleaning oceans, planting trees, and reintroducing wildlife, then leave without a trace. | |
| 2022 | Captain of Industry | 🛠️☁️ | Land your crew of survivors on an abandoned island and survive! Mine raw materials, grow food, build factories, manufacture products, research new tech, and trade with others. Become an industrial superpower! But this is no easy task, you will be put to the test to keep your settlement alive. | |
| 2022 | Urbek City Builder | Urbek is a city building game where you can build your own neighbourhoods: from nightlife district to industrial district. Don't exhaust your natural resources before you have an educated population to build more efficient structures. | ||
| 2019 | Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic | A planned economy city builder. It's apparently an extremely deep game with a steep learning curve. Seems to have developed a cult following. | Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic is the ultimate real-time soviet-themed city builder tycoon game. Construct your own republic and transform a poor country into a rich industrial superpower! | |
| 2019 | Tropico 6 | ☁️👥🥊🎮 | El Presidente is back! Prove yourself once again as a feared dictator or peace-loving statesman on the island state of Tropico and shape the fate of your very own banana republic through four distinctive eras. | |
| 2015 | Cities: Skylines | 👍☁️ | Curator's Choice (arcataroger): Probably the most in-depth city builder available today, even compared to its sequel (Cities Skylines 2). A great simulation of zoning, routing, economy management, hydrology, and more. If you play only one game on this entire list, make it this one! | Cities: Skylines is a modern take on the classic city simulation. The game introduces new game play elements to realize the thrill and hardships of creating and maintaining a real city whilst expanding on some well-established tropes of the city building experience. |
| 2011 | Tropico 4 | ☁️ | The world is changing and Tropico is moving with the times - geographical powers rise and fall and the world market is dominated by new players with new demands and offers - and you, as El Presidente, face a whole new set of challenges. |
Rail & Sails
This is the pre-modern era, before open-sea shipping, trucks, and air freight were common. They have a focus on sailing craft, wagons & trains.
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Anno 1800 | ☁️👥🥊 | Anno 1800™ – Lead the Industrial Revolution! Welcome to the dawn of the Industrial Age. The path you choose will define your world. Are you an innovator or an exploiter? A conqueror or a liberator? How the world remembers your name is up to you. |
Medieval & Fantasy
Before industrialization, or in alternate realities with a typical "old world" fantasy theme.
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Timberborn | 🛠️👍☁️ | Curator's Choice (arcataroger): If beavers had civil engineering degrees and mastered fluid dynamics, what would they build? Great combo of city builder and fluid physics, plus beaver family narratives that will tug at your engineer heartstrings. | Humans are long gone. Will your lumberpunk beavers do any better? A city-building game featuring ingenious animals, vertical architecture, river control, and deadly droughts. Contains high amounts of wood. |
| 2020 | Kingdoms Reborn | 🛠️☁️👥🥊 | A city builder with simulated citizens, set in a procedurally-generated world map. Grow your kingdom through the eras from a tiny medieval hamlet into a prosperous global empire! Cooperate or compete in real-time with your friends in multiplayer mode. | |
| 2020 | Anno 1404: History Edition | ☁️ | Relive the captivating gameplay of a true city-building classic with Anno® 1404 History Edition. | |
| 2019 | Foundation | 🛠️☁️ | Foundation is a grid-less, laidback medieval city-building game with a focus on organic development, monument construction and resource management. |
Sci-Fi & Far-Future
These take place in the post-modern era, often in space.
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Infraspace | Create an extrasolar efficiency utopia from scratch! In this sci-fi city builder you need to start mining operations, plan production, and lay down transportation routes to ensure a smooth supply chain. | ||
| 2018 | Surviving Mars | ☁️🎮 | There will be challenges to overcome. Execute your strategy and improve your colony’s chances of survival while unlocking the mysteries of this alien world. Are you ready? Mars is waiting for you. |
Theme Parks & Dungeons
A genre started by RollerCoaster Tycoon back in the 90s, modern games still play homage to it.
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Jurassic World Evolution 2 | 👍☁️ | Curator's Choice (arcataroger): Build the Jurassic Park of your dreams, complete with genetically-modified supercarnivores, hyperloops, zip lines, and hotels. | Jurassic World Evolution 2 is the much-anticipated sequel to Frontier’s highly successful Jurassic World Evolution. This bold new era in the Jurassic World Evolution game franchise builds upon the ground-breaking and immersive 2018 management simulation. |
| 2020 | RollerCoaster Tycoon® 3: Complete Edition | ☁️ | Build the park of a lifetime and rediscover the critically acclaimed rollercoaster simulation bestseller. Feel the thrill of a genre-defining classic, complete with two huge expansion packs. | |
| 2018 | Jurassic World Evolution | ☁️ | Place yourself at the heart of the Jurassic franchise and build your own Jurassic World. Bioengineer dinosaurs that think, feel and react intelligently to the world around them and face threats posed by espionage, breakouts and devastating tropical storms in an uncertain world where life always finds a way. | |
| 2018 | Parkitect | ☁️👥 | Parkitect is a business simulation game that charges you with the construction and management of theme parks! Bringing back the best of classic theme park games with many new features and content on top. Now supports online co-op with up to 8 players! |
Transportation & Route Management
These games turn the roads and rails of city builders into its own genre, with a focus on route-building, traffic alleviation, and "traveling salesman" problems (finding the best route between points A, B, C, etc.).
Realistic Route-building
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | NIMBY Rails | 🛠️👥 | Design and run your own railroads for the real world. Solve global transportation dilemmas. Unleash your inner railway engineer and transit policy manager. | |
| 2021 | Rail Route | 🛠️🎮 | In Rail Route, you will design, construct, upgrade, and automate your railway network in one of the many maps based on real-life cities worldwide. Dispatch the trains to make the traffic flow and the network grow! | |
| 2019 | Train Valley 2 | ☁️🎮 | Build bigger and more complex railway networks than ever before! Building on the success of the original, you’ll get more of what you loved about the original and then some. With increasingly difficult and complex challenges from local industries, the Valley has never felt so vast! ALL ABOARD! | |
| 2019 | Transport Fever 2 | ☁️🎮 | The classic transport simulation genre has a new gold standard with Transport Fever 2. Discover a whole new world by navigating transport routes through land, water and air. May progress and prosperity find their way! | |
| 2016 | Transport Fever | ☁️ | Transport Fever is a railroad-focused tycoon game. Players start in 1850 and build up a thriving transport company. As an emerging transport tycoon, the player constructs stations, airports, harbors and makes money by connecting areas requiring transport services. Build up your own Empire! | |
| 2018 | Railway Empire | 👍☁️🎮 | Curator's Choice (arcataroger): A great track-building and route management simulator, with detailed terrain-track interactions and different kinds of locomotives. | In Railway Empire, you will create an elaborate and wide-ranging rail network, purchase over 40 different trains modelled in extraordinary detail, and buy or build railway stations, maintenance buildings, factories and tourist attractions to keep your travel network ahead of the competition. |
| 2018 | Mashinky | 🛠️👥🥊 | Mashinky is a transport strategy game about trains. The goal is to create your own transport empire on a procedurally generated map. It’s a unique blend of realistic graphics combined with an isometric construction mode and board game-like rules. | |
| 2015 | Train Valley | Build railways, manage traffic and stay accident-free. Play in Europe, America, Japan and USSR in 1830-2020. Complete the story mode from the Gold Rush of 1849 to the first manned spaceflight, and then explore the random mode. Management. Construction. Trains. Welcome to Train Valley! | ||
| 2004 | OpenTTD | ❤️👥🥊🆓 | OpenTTD is a business simulation game in which players earn money by transporting passengers and cargo via road, rail, water, and air. It is an open-source remake and expansion of the 1995 Chris Sawyer video game Transport Tycoon Deluxe. |
Metro/Train Station Management
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | STATIONflow | STATIONflow is a game about controlling the flow of thousands of passengers by building and managing an efficient underground train station. | ||
| 2020 | Overcrowd: A Commute 'Em Up | Design and build the most efficient metro stations known to man! Excavate. Expand. Set staff priorities. And manage the commuter flow. Overcrowd is a 2.5D management/tycoon/simulator set below the bustling city of Lubdon Town. |
Puzzle & Casual
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Station to Station | ☁️🎮 | ‘Station to Station’ is a minimalist & relaxing game about building railway connections. Grab your conductor’s hat and bring the voxel-art world to life through the magic of trains! | |
| 2023 | RAILGRADE | 🎮 | RAILGRADE is a train resource management game! Construct dense vertical railroads, build cities, construct vast factory chains with train automation! Restore an off world colony's economy all in the story driven campaign! | |
| 2022 | Railbound | 🎮 | A relaxing puzzle game about fixing train connections and travelling the world! | |
| 2021 | Mini Motorways | ❤️👍 | Curator's Choice (arcataroger): Minimalist but addictive take on transportation networks, with roundabouts, highways, and traffic galore. | Mini Motorways is a strategy simulation game about designing the road map for a growing city. Build a traffic network, one road at a time, to create a bustling metropolis. Redesign your roads and place your motorways to get everyone where they need to go. How long can you keep the city moving? |
| 2020 | Unrailed! | 👥🥊🎮 | Unrailed! is a co-op multiplayer game where you have to work together with your friends to build a train track across endless procedurally generated worlds. Master random encounters with its inhabitants, upgrade your train and keep it from derailing! | |
| 2017 | Cosmic Express | Plan the train route for the universe's most awkward space colony! | ||
| 2016 | Turmoil | 🥊 | Drill for oil like it's 1899! Turmoil offers players a visually charming, tongue-in-cheek take on the simulation genre inspired by the 19th century oil rush in North America. | |
| 2015 | Mini Metro | ❤️ | Mini Metro is a strategy simulation game about designing a subway map for a growing city. Draw lines between stations and start your trains running. As new stations open, redraw your lines to keep them efficient. Decide where to use your limited resources. How long can you keep the city moving? |
Survival & Settlement Builders, Colony Sims
Similar to city builders, but with a stronger focus on surviving harsh conditions and managing limited resources, heat/cold, food, etc. In this genre, individual citizens are often more important and impactful, and the simulation is more about the micro aspects of daily life than big-picture population growth.
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Stranded: Alien Dawn | ☁️🎮 | Brave a new world in Stranded: Alien Dawn, a planet survival sim placing the fate of a small marooned group in your hands. Forge your story through compelling and immersive strategic gameplay as you make vital decisions to protect your survivors. | |
| 2022 | Farthest Frontier | 🛠️☁️ | Protect and guide your people as you forge a town from untamed wilderness at the edge of the known world. Harvest raw materials, hunt, fish and farm to survive. Produce crafted items to trade, consume, equip and fight with as you battle for your survival against the elements and outside threats. | |
| 2022 | Against the Storm | 🛠️❤️☁️ | A dark fantasy city builder where you must rebuild civilization in the face of apocalyptic rains. As the Queen’s Viceroy, lead humans, beavers, lizards, foxes, and harpies to reclaim the wilderness and secure a future for civilization's last survivors. | |
| 2021 | Going Medieval | 🛠️☁️ | Stake your claim in this colony building sim and survive a turbulent Medieval age. Construct a multi-storey fortress in a land reclaimed by wilderness, defend against raids, and keep your villagers happy as their lives are shaped by the world around them. | |
| 2020 | Space Haven | 🛠️☁️🎮 | Embark on a space voyage with your ragtag crew of civilians in search of a new home. Build spaceships tile by tile, create optimal gas conditions, manage the needs and moods of their crew, encounter other space-faring groups, and explore the universe in this spaceship colony simulation. | |
| 2019 | They Are Billions | ☁️ | They Are Billions is a Steampunk strategy game set on a post-apocalyptic planet. Build and defend colonies to survive against the billions of the infected that seek to annihilate the few remaining living humans. Can humanity survive after the zombie apocalypse? | |
| 2019 | Oxygen Not Included | ❤️☁️ | Oxygen Not Included is a space-colony simulation game. Deep inside an alien space rock your industrious crew will need to master science, overcome strange new lifeforms, and harness incredible space tech to survive, and possibly, thrive. | |
| 2018 | RimWorld | ❤️☁️🎮 | A sci-fi colony sim driven by an intelligent AI storyteller. Generates stories by simulating psychology, ecology, gunplay, melee combat, climate, biomes, diplomacy, interpersonal relationships, art, medicine, trade, and more. | |
| 2018 | Frostpunk | 👍☁️ | Curator's Choice (arcataroger): Tough survival simulator in a frozen wasteland, with enough resource, route, heat and energy management to make it interesting to the engineer-minded. | Frostpunk is the first society survival game. As the ruler of the last city on Earth, it is your duty to manage both its citizens and infrastructure. What decisions will you make to ensure your society's survival? What will you do when pushed to breaking point? Who will you become in the process? |
| 2017 | Kingdoms and Castles | 🎮 | Kingdoms and Castles is a city-building simulation game about growing a kingdom from a tiny hamlet to a sprawling city and imposing castle. Make trade agreements, alliance, and war with neighboring AI controlled kingdoms. Each villager and resource is individually simulated. | |
| 2014 | rymdkapsel | |||
| 2013 | Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead | The epitome of a modern traditional roguelike: with turn-based play and a RPG-like skill progression system, it hearkens back to some of the major aspects of this genre. This game has an incredible depth, with a deep inventory system, vehicles and boats, NPCs with their own stories, and more. | ||
| 2006 | Dwarf Fortress | ☁️ | The deepest, most intricate simulation of a world that's ever been created. The legendary Dwarf Fortress is now on Steam. Build a fortress and try to help your dwarves survive against a deeply generated world. |
Open-World Survival Sandboxes
A sibling genre to colony sims, here you take direct control of one person (or a small group) to try to gather resources, craft, and survive. While they don't all have the strongest engineering focus, most have at least building & resource management aspects.
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Subnautica: Below Zero | ☁️🎮 | Dive into a freezing underwater adventure on an alien planet. Below Zero is set two years after the original Subnautica. Return to Planet 4546B to uncover the truth behind a deadly cover-up. Survive by building habitats, crafting tools, & diving deeper into the world of Subnautica. | |||
| 2021 | Breathedge | |||||
| 2021 | Valheim | ❤️☁️👥🎮 | A brutal exploration and survival game for 1-10 players, set in a procedurally-generated purgatory inspired by viking culture. Battle, build, and conquer your way to a saga worthy of Odin’s patronage! | |||
| 2020 | Hydroneer | ☁️👥 | Hydroneer is a mining and base building sandbox. Dig for gold and other resources to turn a profit and enhance your mining operation. Build a base of operations, forge weapons, go fishing, and dig deep! | |||
| 2020 | Empyrion - Galactic Survival | ☁️👥🥊🎮 | Empyrion - Galactic Survival is a 3D open world space sandbox survival adventure. Build powerful ships, mighty space stations and vast planetary settlements to explore, conquer or exploit a variety of different planets and discover the mysteries of Empyrion! | |||
| 2018 | Subnautica | ❤️👍☁️🎮 | Curator's Choice (arcataroger): Build your own underwater homestead on an alien planet, with lots of exotic flora, fauna, minerals and machines. | Descend into the depths of an alien underwater world filled with wonder and peril. Craft equipment, pilot submarines and out-smart wildlife to explore lush coral reefs, volcanoes, cave systems, and more - all while trying to survive. | ||
| 2017 | Stationeers | 🛠️☁️👥🎮 | Stationeers puts you in control of the construction and management of a space station to run by yourself or online with your friends. Complex atmospheric, electrical, manufacturing, agriculture, and gravitational systems require your thought and management at all times! | |||
| 2016 | Astroneer | ☁️👥🎮 | A game of aerospace industry and interplanetary exploration. | |||
| 2013 | Project Zomboid | 🛠️☁️👥🥊🎮 | Project Zomboid is the ultimate in zombie survival. Alone or in MP: you loot, build, craft, fight, farm and fish in a struggle to survive. A hardcore RPG skillset, a vast map, massively customisable sandbox and a cute tutorial raccoon await the unwary. So how will you die? All it takes is a bite.. | |||
| 2013 | 7 Days to Die | 🛠️☁️👥🥊🎮 | 7 Days to Die is an open-world game that is a unique combination of first-person shooter, survival horror, tower defense, and role-playing games. Play the definitive zombie survival sandbox RPG that came first. Navezgane awaits! |
Bridge-Building
These games focus on building semi-realistic (or not) bridges over cliffs, rivers, etc. with physics simulation and load management. Different material strengths and stressors test your ability to build bridges that hold up under heavy use.
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Poly Bridge 3 | ❤️ | The best just got better! Rediscover your engineering creativity in this genre-defining bridge engineering and puzzle solving masterpiece. | |
| 2020 | Poly Bridge 2❤️ | The acclaimed bridge-building indie-hit is back! More levels, more features, more physics fun! | ||
| 2017 | Bridge Constructor Portal | 🎮 | Enter the Aperture Science Enrichment Center and experience Bridge Constructor Portal – the unique merging of the classic Portal™ and Bridge Constructor™ games. | |
| 2016 | Poly Bridge | Unleash your engineering creativity with an engaging and fresh bridge-building simulator with all the bells and whistles. Enjoy hours of physics-based puzzle solving in the Campaign and then jump in the Sandbox to create your own bridge designs and puzzles! | ||
| 2014 | Bridge Constructor Medieval | Bridge Constructor Medieval turns back the clock a few centuries to the time of knights and castles. Build sturdy bridges to supply your city with provisions - or cunningly constructed bridges that collapse under the weight of attacking troops, sending the horde of enemies into the abyss below. | ||
| 2008 | World of Goo | World of Goo is a multiple award winning physics based puzzle / construction game made entirely by two guys. |
Rube Goldberg Machines
These games replicate the "Incredible Machine" games of the 90s, where you build crazy contraptions out of everything from lasers to ballons to cats, then use them in humorous ways to complete puzzles.
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | World of Contraptions | World of Contraptions is a physics-based building game in which you build the most varied contraptions to solve the most diverse types of puzzles. Win dozens of levels with different types of obstacles. Design the best contraption for each challenge using a giant collection of blocks. | ||
| 2016 | Ultimate Chicken Horse | ❤️👍☁️👥🥊🎮 | Curator's Choice (arcataroger): A competitive, multiplayer reimagining of the genre, where your contraptions become traps that foil other players (or yourself, if you're not careful) | Ultimate Chicken Horse is a party platformer game where you build the level as you play, placing traps and hazards to screw your friends over, but trying not to screw yourself. |
| 2016 | Crazy Machines 3 | Crazy Machines 3 is the latest, greatest, most amazing and craziest part of the series and fascinates once more with physic-based puzzles. Build your own crazy machines and share your awesomeness across the world thanks to the Steam® Workshop. | ||
| 2014 | Contraption Maker | 👥 | Contraption Maker is a physics sandbox puzzle game from the designer/programmer of The Incredible Machine.Play 100s of puzzles. Build and share elaborate contraptions with an amazing variety of parts and critters. |
Hacking, Computer Science, Logic & Automation
These games have a focus on programming and automation. Unlike factory games, they focus on optimizing repeatable sets of actions rather than resource inputs. Some are graphical, while others require some light scripting/coding.
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Lambda Spellcrafting Academy | 🌱 | (@BitTwiddleGames) Programming is fun! I wanted to make a game that made learning to code fun too. Inspired by MIT's SICP, which made programming feel magical. | Develop magical programming abilities while building spells. Lambda Spellcrafting Academy is a card-based puzzle game where you build spells (programs) to solve puzzles. Fun for complete beginners or professional wizards. |
| 2021 | ComPressure | Design increasingly complex computation units powered by high pressure steam. From switches to steam based computers, all in a world of analogue pressure devices. Use previous designs to solve further challenges, unravel the mystery of the missing steam and discover a new field of science. | ||
| 2019 | Baba Is You | ❤️🎮 | Well-regarded logic puzzler that forms the basis of how programming languages function. | Baba Is You is a puzzle game where the rules you have to follow are present as blocks you can interact with. By manipulating them, you can change how the game works, repurpose things you find in the levels and cause surprising interactions! |
| 2019 | while True: learn() | 🎮 | You’re a machine learning specialist who makes neural networks but your cat seems to be better at it. Now you must solve puzzles to build a cat-to-human translation system (who knows what else this cat is capable of!). Earn a fortune, buy kickass cat outfits, learn how machine learning really works! | |
| 2019 | NITE Team 4 - Military Hacking Division | 👥 | NITE Team 4 is a military hacking simulation game that explores the world of cyberwarfare and features realistic mission scenarios. | |
| 2018 | EXAPUNKS | ❤️ | The year is 1997. You used to be a hacker, but now you have the phage. You made a deal: one hack, one dose. There’s nothing left to lose… except your life. | |
| 2018 | 7 Billion Humans | Automate swarms of office workers to solve puzzles inside your very own parallel computer made of people. A thrilling followup to the award winning Human Resource Machine. Now with more humans! | ||
| 2017 | Silicon Zeroes | A puzzle game about CPU design using a variety of simple components, like Adders, Latches and Multiplexers | Build hardware. Solve puzzles. From the creator of Manufactoria, a new open-ended puzzle game set in Silicon Valley's first startup. | |
| 2017 | Grey Hack | 👥🥊 | Grey Hack is a massively multiplayer hacking simulator game. You're a hacker with full freedom to act as you wish on a vast network of procedurally generated computers. | |
| 2016 | TIS-100 | ❤️ | TIS-100 is an open-ended programming game by Zachtronics, the creators of SpaceChem and Infinifactory, in which you rewrite corrupted code segments to repair the TIS-100 and unlock its secrets. It’s the assembly language programming game you never asked for! | |
| 2016 | The Witness | 🎮 | Puzzle game which teaches the player a visual language of interlocking rules, similar to a programming language. | You wake up, alone, on a strange island full of puzzles that will challenge and surprise you. |
| 2016 | Screeps: World | 🥊 | Open-source MMO RTS sandbox game for programming enthusiasts, wherein the core mechanic is programming your units AI. You control your colony by writing JavaScript which operates 24/7 in the single persistent open world filled by other players on par with you. | Screeps: World is an open source MMO RTS sandbox game for programming enthusiasts, wherein the core mechanic is programming your units AI. You control your colony by writing JavaScript which operates 24/7 in the single persistent open world filled by other players on par with you. |
| 2015 | Hacknet | ☁️ | Hacknet is an immersive, terminal-based hacking simulator for PC. Dive down a rabbit hoIe as you follow the instructions of a recently deceased hacker, whose death may not have been the accident the media reports. | |
| 2015 | Human Resource Machine | Program little office workers to solve puzzles. Be a good employee! The machines are coming... for your job. From the creators of World of Goo and Little Inferno. | ||
| 2016 | Mu Complex | Play as a hacker and take control of an ultra secret company to reveal the darkest secrets. But beware , you seem not to be alone and what you will discover could change the world ... | ||
| 2001 | Uplink (Hacker Elite) | One of the earliest "hack the Internet" games. | You play an Uplink Agent who makes a living by performing jobs for major corporations. Your tasks involve hacking into rival computer systems, stealing research data, sabotaging other companies, laundering money, erasing evidence, or framing innocent people. |
Automation with Coding
This sub-genre with not many games is a blend of your typical factory game and coding game. Instead of building automation using assembly lines with pickers, sorters, etc., you would actually write "code" (either real code or via graphical coding blocks) to optimize production.
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | The Farmer Was Replaced | ❤️👍 | This is an amazing programming game that carefully ramps up the difficulty with interesting challenges, starting from simple loops and getting into more complex algorithms. Great practice for novices and professional coders alike. | Program and optimize a drone to automate a farm and watch it do the work for you. Collect resources to unlock better technology and become the most efficient farmer in the world. Improve your problem solving and coding skills. |
| 2019 | Autonauts | Village/colony sim populated by robots, with visual programming | In Autonauts you must build, create, and automate. Start by establishing a colony, crafting bots and teaching them via Scratch-style programming to build an ever evolving autonomous paradise of agriculture, industry and enlightenment. | |
| 2016 | Bitburner | ❤️🆓 | A mix of hacking and automation optimization, as you gradually acquire more servers & compute power. Browser version also available. | Bitburner is a programming-based incremental game. Write scripts in JavaScript to automate gameplay, learn skills, play minigames, solve puzzles, and more in this cyberpunk text-based incremental RPG. |
Electrical Engineering
Similar to programming games, but at a lower level in the machine. Wire circuits instead of writing code.
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Virtual Circuit Board | Virtual Circuit Board is the sandbox drawing-based logic simulator where you can build, program, decorate, and simulate anything from simple monochrome circuits to complex and colorful computers. Play with digital logic in this sandbox-only experience. | ||
| 2022 | Electrician Simulator | Take on the electrician role and learn the profession's basics! Install sockets, repair worn-out equipment, assemble broken appliances, replace light bulbs, and lay wires at your customers' homes. Be sure to check everything twice, with electricity there are no jokes! | ||
| 2021 | Turing Complete | ❤️ | Learn CPU architecture with puzzles | |
| 2016 | SHENZHEN I/O | ❤️ | BUILD CIRCUITS. WRITE CODE. RTFM. |
Job Simulators & Unique Themes
This is sort of a catch-all category for games that don't neatly fit anywhere else, usually with a creative take on some mundane (or exciting!) job.
Ship Crews (Space or Naval)
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Void Crew | 🛠️☁️👥🛠️ | Void Crew is a 1-4 player co-op First Person Space Adventure: Rally your crew, power your spaceship, and get ready for epic space battles, facing chaotic dangers you and your crew never trained for! | |
| 2023 | Barotrauma | ☁️👥🥊 | Barotrauma is a 2D co-op submarine simulator – in space, with survival horror and RPG elements. Steer your submarine, complete missions, fight monsters, fix leaks, operate machinery, man the guns and craft items, and stay alert: danger in Barotrauma doesn’t announce itself! | |
| 2022 | Cosmoteer: Starship Architect & Commander | ❤️☁️👥🥊 | Ship builder sandbox in the style of FTL | Design and simulate the starship of your dreams! Command it in epic battles and manage your crew while exploring a dangerous galaxy. Play alone or with friends, test your ship in online PvP, and let your imagination reach for the stars! |
| 2021 | PULSAR: Lost Colony | ☁️👥🎮 | Mix of Bridge Crew, Barotrauma and FTL | Team up to operate a starship and explore a randomized galaxy falling into chaos. Coordination between your crewmembers is essential to survive the perils that await you. |
| 2021 | Carrier Command 2 | 👥🥊🎮 | Operate weaponized UAVs and rovers against other weaponized UAVs and rovers. | Carrier Command 2 is the real-time strategy game that puts you in command of a futuristic carrier capable of deploying a vast array of aircraft and amphibious units. Compete against AI or human players and hop into every single vehicle to take matters into your own hands! |
| 2017 | Star Trek: Bridge Crew | 👥🥊🎮 | Star Trek™: Bridge Crew, playable in both VR and non-VR, will immerse you in the Star Trek universe. In co-op, form a crew of four players to serve in the roles of Captain, Helm, Tactical or Engineer. Make strategic decisions and coordinate actions with your crew. | |
| 2013 | Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator | Artemis is designed for anyone who watched Star Trek and dreamed of what it would be like to sit on the bridge of a star ship. Artemis simulates a spaceship bridge by networking several computers together. You cannot play Artemis single-player! | ||
| 2012 | FTL: Faster Than Light | ❤️☁️ | This "spaceship simulation roguelike-like" allows you to take your ship and crew on an adventure through a randomly generated galaxy filled with glory and bitter defeat. |
Space Operations & Orbital Mechanics
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | ΔV: Rings of Saturn | 🎮 | A physics-based mining sim, set in the thickest debris field in Sol. Every action has a reaction, lasers are invisible without a medium, and your thrust is a potent weapon. Find trade, adapt your equipment to your playstyle, hire a crew to help. Unravel the mysteries of the rings, or just get rich. | |
| 2016 | Children of a Dead Earth | Scientifically accurate space warfare simulator | The most scientifically accurate space warfare simulator ever made. Now with Steam Workshop! | |
| 2015 | Kerbal Space Program | ❤️🎮 | In Kerbal Space Program, take charge of the space program for the alien race known as the Kerbals. You have access to an array of parts to assemble fully-functional spacecraft that flies (or doesn’t) based on realistic aerodynamic and orbital physics. |
Construction & Demolition
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Instruments of Destruction | ❤️🛠️ | Instruments of Destruction is a vehicle-building sandbox featuring advanced physics-based destruction. Create crazy construction vehicles and use them to demolish buildings and complete various objectives. | |
| 2022 | Construction Simulator | ☁️👥🎮️ | Construction Simulator is back – bigger and better than ever! Take charge of over 80 machines, dozens of them brand new to the franchise, and build to your heart’s content on two huge maps – on your own or with your friends! | |
| 2020 | Teardown | ❤️🎮 | is similar to similar to Instruments of Destruction. With nice voxel physics. | Prepare the perfect heist in this simulated and fully destructible voxel world. Tear down walls with vehicles or explosives to create shortcuts. Stack objects to reach higher. Use the environment to your advantage in the most creative way you can think of. |
| 2015 | Prison Architect |
Vehicle Operations & Physics
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | SimRail - The Railway Simulator | 🛠️☁️🎮 | SimRail is new, advanced railway simulator. Master high-speed long-distance EMU, heavy freight hauls and suburban trains. Travel 500 km of geodetic-data based real routes. Become train dispatcher and control the traffic according to the schedule or cooperate with other players on multiplayer mode. | |
| 2021 | SnowRunner | ☁️👥🎮 | Get ready for the next-generation off-road experience! Drive powerful vehicles and overcome extreme open environments to complete dozens of challenging missions solo or with up to 3 friends! | |
| 2017 | MudRunner | 👍☁️👥🎮 | Curator's Choice (arcataroger): Simulated mud physics and deformable terrain make for a unique experience driving large logging trucks through the wilderness. | MudRunner is the ultimate off-road experience putting the players in the driver seat and dares them to take charge of incredible all-terrain vehicles, venturing across extreme Siberian landscapes with only a map and compass as guides! |
| 2006 | Garry's Mod | 👍☁️👥🥊 | Curator's Choice (naet): A playground using the Half Life 2 physics and game engine. I had great fun slapping wheels on something like a bathtub and making a makeshift car, or making silly Rube Goldberg style machines using levers, ropes, thrusters, etc. Not a typical game since it didn't offer any typical goals or levels outside of have fun and be creative, but that IMO only heightened the inspiration to engineer stuff to play with. | Garry's Mod is a physics sandbox. There aren't any predefined aims or goals. We give you the tools and leave you to play. |
Narrative Storytelling Games
These adventure games are story-first, and may or may not have engineering in the primary gameplay mechanics. However, they do have stories about or involving engineers.
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Citizen Sleeper | 🎮 | A minimalist adventure game about living in a post-capitalism space station/junkyard. Some story paths feature more engineering than others. | Roleplaying in the ruins of interplanetary capitalism. Live the life of an escaped worker, washed-up on a lawless station at the edge of an interstellar society. Inspired by the flexibility and freedom of TTRPGs, explore the station, choose your friends, escape your past and change your future. |
| 2015 | Else Heart.Break() | 👍 | Curator's Choice (deerrikcurran): a fantastic story set in a fully dynamic and interactive world. Instead of rigid puzzles you will learn (with the help from other characters in the game) how the reality of the game can be changed through programming and how any problem can be solved in whatever way you find suitable. | A game about friendship, love and technology in a place where bits have replaced atoms. |
Everything else
These games defy easy categorization, but were "engineer-y" enough in some way to warrant inclusion
| Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Airport CEO | ☁️ | Build and manage an international airport! | |
| 2019 | PC Building Simulator | ☁️🎮 | Build and grow your very own computer repair enterprise as you learn to diagnose, fix and build PCs. With real-world licensed components and comprehensive hardware and software simulation, you can plan and bring your ultimate PC to life. | |
| 2001 | Car Mechanic Simulator 2021 | ❤️☁️🎮 | Work your way to a service empire. Get your hands dirty in a highly realistic simulation game that pays major attention to details. Pay a visit to a new Auction house and buy cars in various conditions. Expand your range of services by investing in a new work space and equipment. |
Contributors & Credits
Thank you to everyone who's contributed to this list:
@Sch1nken, @TimothyFothergill, @cybrox, @Papawy, @dotvhs, @pmarks-net, @abeyer, @uwu64, @maxwofford, @twiclo, @ritog, @jweather, gene-h, disintegore, idoubtit, naet, derrikcurran, RA2lover, @arctenis, @mathieubruguier, @cardinal23, @bhamiltoncx, @bdomars, @neuron-whisperer, @sirpalee, @zaeith, @BitTwiddleGames, @allen13, namrog84, Kiro, @Kowh
And extra special thanks to:
- Hackernews for an incredible community, and dang there for being such an amazing moderator!
- Zachtronics (many of the logic/hacking games), Wube Software (Factorio), and Youthcat Games ( Dyson Sphere Program) for introducing me to these genres in the first place and inspiring this list