I’m a real sucker for the beautiful automation of a well-oiled Satisfactory base. Seeing all your carefully engineered solutions ticking along efficiently is an incredibly rewarding feeling, and a big part of why Coffee Stain’s creation is one of the best sandbox games around. However, it’s mostly a surface offering, save for a handful of caves, and sometimes I crave the mines. Enter MineMogul, which is all about the kind of industrial tunneling you’d associate with Minecraft or Terraria, but with that automation loop layered lovingly on top, and it’s not afraid to embrace a little chaos as a result.
Before the days of Factorio and Satisfactory, I fell in love with some of the best Minecraft mods that enabled you to build networks of pipes to move materials around your base and set up automated sorting and crafting systems. Those early iterations of Feed the Beast and Technic always had a pleasingly messy edge to them, where things could quickly go wrong and cause a pileup, so the inherent haphazardness of MineMogul is immediately appealing.
Burrowing down into a cave network dotted with the ruins of abandoned mining operations, it’s your job to set up the machines and supply lines to transform the desolate tunnels into a humming hub of activity and production. Use your gathered resources to earn the funds for new tools, allowing you to escalate your operation another step further.
Where MineMogul really shines, however, is in the simplicity of the setup combined with the ways its physics-based systems create the potential for chaos. Every resource comes in distinct, weighty lumps that must be dealt with, and they’re all dumped loosely onto your conveyors at whatever rate you choose. That means you’ll need to plan carefully to avoid overflow or unwanted instances of parts bouncing off into neighboring tracks.
Even just this small adjustment makes for some tremendous tactility, and turns the whole thing into an engineering puzzle that feels refreshingly realistic. There’s no static set spots here; you’re forced to think about your setup in a way that would actually work in real life. Despite this, there’s one fantastic concession to fun in the form of a handheld magnet that can quickly scoop up loose debris into a big floating bundle. You’ll need a suitable spot to put it all down again, however, or all you’ll have done is move the problem somewhere else.
Developer Noodleforge has laid out its early access plans above, and there are quite a few additions on the cards for the future. To start with, its first major update will include additional quests, a contracts system, a packing machine, and some improvements to the core physics engine. Beyond that, however, it’s planning more biomes, ores, machines, decorations, an elevator option, ways to upgrade your tools and conveyors, decorations for your base, and quality-of-life features such as rebindable keys, localization, and better Steam Deck support.
MineMogul is out now in Steam early access, priced at $12.74 / £10.87 until Sunday December 14 thanks to a 15% launch discount. Expect to pay $14.99 / £12.79 once the sale ends. Grab it here if you think you’ve got what it takes to master the mayhem. There’s also a free demo you can try first, although note (as seen in the image above) that it’s missing a few features already available in the full game.