The Factory

The Factory is an educational game, designed to introduce young children to the ideas behind programming. The player is prompted with a rectangular plate, decorated with stripes and holes arrayed at various angles. They then need to design a factory production line consisting of a step-by-step set of processes that arrive at the desired pattern. Each step is performed by a machine that either Stripes, Punches or Rotates an initially plain plate. After choosing the machines, the manufacturing process is simulated, and the resulting plate is compared with the starting specification.

Except for the Atari port, there are three levels of difficulty. The easiest levels require only two or three machines to be placed in order to create the desired patterns. The hardest levels may require up to eight machines. In addition to solving problems generated by the computer, there is an option which allows you to create your own patterns, and challenge someone else to recreate it. There is also a free-form mode.