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Awesome Engineering Games

Awesome

A curated list of engineering-related video games rated Very Positive or higher on Steam.

Games are divided into broad categories based on the type(s) of engineering they're most related to, such as civil engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, etc.

Please feel free to suggest new games or update existing titles!

Ratings & Symbols 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.

All other games have "Very Positive" overall reviews on Steam, meaning >= 80% of 50+ reviewers liked it.

Table of Contents

Click to expand Table of Contents

This Table of Contents was auto-generated by DocToc

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.

Puzzle & Casual

These games distill the genre down to its core, stripping away the manual resource management and focusing on routing & automation.

  • (2020) shapez ❤️ 👍
    • Curator's Choice: A minimalist Factorio with an emphasis on conveyor belts.
  • (2019) MOLEK-SYNTEZ
  • (2017) Opus Magnum ❤️ 👍 ☁️
    • Curator's Choice: Another minimalist take on the genre, distilling it down into symbols and automated pickers, sorters, and movers on rails.
  • (2011) SpaceChem ❤️

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.

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.

  • (2023) Terra Nil ☁️
  • (2022) Captain of Industry ☁️
  • (2019) Tropico 6 ☁️
  • (2015) Cities: Skylines 👍 ☁️
    • Curator's Choice: 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!

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.

Medieval & Fantasy

Before industrialization, or in alternate realities with a typical "old world" fantasy theme.

  • (2021) Timberborn 👍 ☁️
    • Curator's Choice: 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.
  • (2020) Kingdoms Reborn ☁️
  • (2020) Anno 1404: History Edition ☁️
  • (2019) Foundation ☁️

Sci-Fi & Far-Future

These take place in the post-modern era, often in space.

Theme Parks & Dungeons

A genre started by RollerCoaster Tycoon back in the 90s, modern games still play homage to it.

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

Metro/Train Station Management

Puzzle & Casual

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Electrical Engineering

Similar to programming games, but at a lower level in the machine. Wire circuits instead of writing code.

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)

Space Operations & Orbital Mechanics

Construction & Demolition

Vehicle Operations & Physics

Everything else

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