To build words you first have to craft each letter in this clever factory puzzle game

Small factories producing letters to spell Cat
(Image credit: Star Garden Games)

If you really think about it, the letter L is just the letter I with another letter I lying down in front of it. What's a T? Maybe two letter Ls that have been welded together after being turned upside down? A V is just an I that's leaning over and has been welded together at the bottom with another leaning I, so an X… that's either two Is crossing each other, or maybe two Vs, one flipped upside down and welded together at the pointy bits. Maybe?

That's the concept in puzzle game Word Factori. You have a small factory that can produce the letter I, and using only that letter you have to create words like OX, CAT, and IVY, and then eventually tougher constructions like DOCTOR, VOXEL, and AXOLOTL.

How do you do it with just an I? Well, by running a production line of Is from one factory to the next. There's a factory that will take an I and bend it into a C-shape, which is naturally how you make a C. But if you want to make an O, there's no O factory. 

So you'll have to get two lines of Is running through a C factory, then flip one line horizontally, then weld them together in another factory. C plus backwards C is an O. And things only get more complicated from there.

Hey, it turns out there was an I in TEAM all this time. In fact, there were a whole bunch of them! My coach was completely wrong.

Half of the fun of Word Factori is simply experimenting. It's not always clear what a factory does until you've run some letters through it, and along the way you might discover the recipe for a different letter than you intended. While trying to fabricate an X for the first time, I sent two horizontal Is into a welding factory and instead of crisscrossing them into an X it instead produced an = sign. Which was not only funny, but pretty accurate. An equal sign is, after all, one I lying on top of another I. Making the X properly turned out to be a bit trickier.

Word Factori: Trying to spell ox"

And while it seems like the fun might run out once you've learned the recipe for each of the 26 possible letters, there are additional challenges in Word Factori that limit you to how many and what types of each factory you can use on each level. With some letters having multiple recipes, you'd have to discover the most optimal factory setup to beat each challenge. And with all those factories and conveyor belts and letters whizzing around on your screen, it can get a little hectic at times. 

One bizarre final little detail I enjoy is that when you do successfully complete a word, it starts spitting out a picture of that word rather than the word itself. So if you spell the word duck, your screen will slowly become filled with pictures of a duck instead of the word duck. Weird! But cute. Word Factori is planned for release in August, but there's a free demo on Steam you can (and should) try right now. You know how to spell Steam, right? First, you bend an I… 

Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.

Read more
A mountain block dropping into place in Drop Duchy.
Drop Duchy is an unholy fusion of city builder, roguelike deckbuilder, and Tetris, and you can try it for free right now
A toy robot's arms and legs are welded into place as it's assembled
One of the best puzzle game designers is back with Kaizen: A Factory Story, a game about manufacturing Japanese consumer goods during the largest economic bubble in history
Is This Seat Taken? screenshots
Is This Seat Taken? is an upcoming adorable puzzle game all about dealing with stinky triangles and snotty squares, and just trying to make everyone happy
Microtopia
I didn't think Factorio needed swarms of robot ants, but the trailer for this upcoming factory sim has convinced me it missed a trick
A series of large explosions in Bio Prototype.
This bizarre roguelike has a new take on the Vampire Survivors formula: letting you build your own custom weapons out of brains, eyeballs, and chimpanzee spines
Cozy Desktop Konbini screenshots
My favourite Steam Next Fest game, Cozy Desktop Konbini, combines my love for shopping management sims and desktop idlers
Latest in Puzzle
A sign reads "HATRED IS POWER"
A demo for a lost videogame based on George Orwell's 1984 has emerged from the memory hole
London Bridge during snowfall
This is the coolest pricing gimmick I've ever seen: the temperature in London determines the price of this videogame
Wordle today being played on a phone
Today's Wordle answer for Sunday, March 16
Wordle answers
Today's Wordle answer for Saturday, March 15
Today's Wordle being played on a phone
Today's Wordle answer for Friday, March 14
Wordle today puzzle on a smartphone
Today's Wordle answer for Thursday, March 13
Latest in News
Aloy - Horizon
'I feel worried about this art form:' Unsurprisingly, the real Aloy from Horizon isn't a fan of AI Aloy
Crying laughing emoji with disturbing realistic elements for REPO
REPO's first update will add a new map and a 'duck bucket' so we can finally give that pesky quacker a time out
Man facing camera
The Day Before studio reportedly sues Russian website for calling infamous disaster-game a 'scam'
Will Poulter holding a CD ROM
'What are most games about? Killing': Black Mirror Season 7 includes a follow-up to 2018 interactive film Bandersnatch
Casper Van Dien in Starship Troopers
Sony, which is making a Helldivers 2 movie, is also making a new Starship Troopers movie, but it's not based on the Starship Troopers movie we already have
Assassin's Creed meets PUBG
Ubisoft is reportedly talking to Tencent about creating a new business entity to manage Assassin's Creed and other big games