Automation Empire

Automation Empire is a strategy and city-building simulation game set in a futuristic sci-fi world, where players manage and expand their automated empire through managerial and business mechanics. Released in 2019 by Dog Hoggler, the game blends 3rd-person perspective with deep simulation elements, allowing players to construct and optimize their industrial domains. Despite facing development challenges and community concerns over updates, the game offers a unique take on automation and resource management in a sleek, futuristic setting.

Automation Empire: A Promising but Abandoned Industrial Dream

Introduction

Automation Empire (2019) is a game that exists in the shadow of its own potential. Developed by the two-person indie studio Dog Hoggler, it promised to be a deep, satisfying automation and logistics simulator—a spiritual successor to the likes of Factorio and Satisfactory, but with its own unique twist. Yet, despite its ambitious premise and initial enthusiasm from a niche audience, the game’s legacy is one of unfulfilled promise, abandoned updates, and a community left in the dark. This review explores Automation Empire in exhaustive detail, examining its strengths, flaws, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding its development and eventual stagnation.

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Development History & Context

The Studio Behind the Game

Dog Hoggler, the studio behind Automation Empire, is a micro-indie team consisting of just two developers: Sean Cutino (art) and Brad Hall (programming). Their portfolio is modest, with only three games released on Steam, including Beast Battle Simulator and Microgons. Automation Empire was their most ambitious project, a game that sought to carve out a space in the burgeoning automation genre.

The Vision

The game’s official description paints a vivid picture of its aspirations:

“Automation Empire is a simulation/management game all about efficiency and expansion. Start with nothing, and build up a massive interconnected industrial network of factories and machines. Economical transportation of resources will be essential to your success as an automation-engineer.”

The developers envisioned a game where players could design complex logistics networks, integrate their factories with diverse planetary biomes, and gradually unlock advanced technologies. The emphasis was on creativity, optimization, and scalability—a sandbox where players could engineer their own mechanical utopias.

The Gaming Landscape in 2019

Automation Empire launched on November 20, 2019, into a genre that was already dominated by heavyweights:
– Factorio (2016) had cemented itself as the gold standard for automation games.
– Satisfactory (Early Access, 2019) was gaining traction with its 3D, first-person approach.
– Dyson Sphere Program (2021) was on the horizon, promising even grander scales.

Against this backdrop, Automation Empire struggled to differentiate itself. While it offered a third-person, isometric perspective and a planetary progression system, it lacked the polish, depth, and community engagement of its competitors.

Technological Constraints

Built in Unity, the game suffered from performance issues, particularly in later stages where large-scale factories would cause frame rate drops. The UI, while functional, was often criticized for being clunky and unintuitive, especially for newcomers. The lack of a proper tutorial or in-game manual forced players to rely on community guides—a significant barrier to entry.

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Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

The Premise: A Silent Story

Automation Empire is not a narrative-driven game. There is no overarching plot, no characters, and no dialogue. Instead, the “story” is emergent, born from the player’s interactions with the game’s systems. You are an automation engineer, tasked with building and expanding an industrial empire across seven distinct planets, each with unique geological challenges.

Themes: Efficiency, Expansion, and Isolation

The game’s themes revolve around:
1. Industrialization and Progress: The player’s journey mirrors the real-world Industrial Revolution, starting with basic resource extraction and culminating in advanced automation.
2. Logistical Mastery: The core challenge is not just building factories but optimizing supply chains—a metaphor for modern capitalism’s obsession with efficiency.
3. Isolation and Abandonment: The lack of NPCs, enemies, or even a hint of life beyond the player’s constructions creates a hauntingly empty world. This isolation is compounded by the game’s real-world abandonment, making the experience feel like a ghost town of unfulfilled potential.

The Absence of Narrative: A Double-Edged Sword

While some players appreciate the pure, unadulterated focus on mechanics, others find the lack of context sterile and unengaging. Games like Factorio and Satisfactory inject personality through humor, lore, or environmental storytelling. Automation Empire, by contrast, feels clinical—a spreadsheet with pretty visuals.

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Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

Core Gameplay Loop

The gameplay revolves around four key pillars:
1. Resource Extraction: Mine ores (iron, coal, gold) and harvest raw materials.
2. Transportation: Use drones, trucks, trains, and monorails to move resources between facilities.
3. Production Chains: Refine raw materials into intermediate goods, then into final products.
4. Expansion: Unlock new technologies and expand to new planets with unique challenges.

Strengths: Depth and Complexity

• Modular Factory Design: Players can create intricate, interconnected production lines, with the freedom to experiment with layouts.
• Planetary Diversity: Each of the seven planets has distinct terrain and resources, forcing players to adapt their strategies.
• Research Tree: Unlocking new technologies (e.g., advanced drones, monorails) provides a sense of progression.

Flaws: Clunkiness and Oversights

1. Monorail Bugs: One of the most infamous issues is the broken monorail system, which fails to function correctly in certain levels, effectively halting progress.
2. No Resizing Buildings: A frequently cited frustration is the inability to resize or modify existing structures without demolishing them entirely—a tedious oversight in a game about iteration.
3. Poor UI/UX: The interface is counterintuitive, with critical information buried in menus. New players often struggle to understand basic mechanics without external guides.
4. Lack of Late-Game Depth: While early-game logistics are engaging, the late game lacks meaningful challenges, devolving into repetitive expansion.

Combat and Conflict: The Glaring Absence

Unlike Factorio, which introduces enemy raids to disrupt production, Automation Empire has no combat, no threats, and no urgency. This makes the experience feel relaxing but ultimately hollow—a sandbox without stakes.

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World-Building, Art & Sound

Visual Design: A Mixed Bag

• Aesthetic: The game’s low-poly, sci-fi industrial art style is charming but lacks polish. Textures are simple, and animations are functional but not fluid.
• Planetary Variety: The seven planets offer visually distinct biomes, from barren deserts to lush forests, which adds replayability.
• Scale and Immersion: The isometric perspective allows for grand, sprawling factories, but the lack of zoom or rotational camera limits immersion.

Sound Design: Functional but Forgettable

• Ambient Noise: The game features subtle industrial hums and machinery sounds, which enhance the atmosphere but are not memorable.
• Music: The soundtrack is minimalist and repetitive, failing to evoke the same grandeur as Satisfactory’s synthwave beats or Factorio’s upbeat tunes.

Atmosphere: The Loneliness of Automation

The game’s empty, lifeless worlds reinforce its themes of isolation. There are no NPCs, no wildlife, and no signs of civilization beyond the player’s creations. This can be meditative for some but depressing for others, especially given the game’s real-world abandonment.

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Reception & Legacy

Critical and Commercial Reception

• MobyGames: No official reviews, with a user score of 3.0/5 based on a single rating.
• Steam: Mixed reviews (65% positive) from ~2,600 user reviews. Players praise its core mechanics but criticize its bugs, lack of updates, and poor communication.
• Metacritic: A user score of 7.7/10, with reviews ranging from “gorgeous but lacking depth” to “unplayable due to bugs.”

The Abandonment Mystery

The most intriguing aspect of Automation Empire is its sudden halt in development:
– Last Update: Early 2020, shortly after launch.
– Developer Silence: No official statements from Dog Hoggler since.
– Community Theories:
– Financial Struggles: Sales may have dried up, making further development unviable.
– Personal Tragedy: Some speculate that one or both developers may have passed away, given the timing (early COVID-19 pandemic).
– Shift to New Projects: The studio may have moved on to other ventures, leaving Automation Empire as abandonware.

Influence on the Genre

Despite its flaws, Automation Empire contributed to the automation genre’s evolution by:
– Emphasizing Planetary Progression: Later games like Dyson Sphere Program and Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure (2024) adopted similar multi-world structures.
– Highlighting Logistics as Core Gameplay: The game’s focus on transportation networks influenced titles that treat logistics as a puzzle rather than an afterthought.

However, its lack of post-launch support serves as a cautionary tale for indie developers about the importance of community engagement.

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Conclusion: A Game of What Could Have Been

Automation Empire is a flawed gem—a game with a brilliant core idea but executed with too many rough edges and zero follow-through. Its abandonment by Dog Hoggler is a tragedy, not just for the players who enjoyed it but for the genre as a whole. Had the developers continued to refine its systems, fix its bugs, and expand its content, it could have stood alongside Factorio and Satisfactory as a classic of automation gaming.

As it stands, Automation Empire is a relic of unfulfilled potential, a testament to the challenges of indie game development, and a reminder of how quickly a promising project can fade into obscurity. For those willing to look past its flaws, it offers a unique, if frustrating, logistics experience. For everyone else, it remains a what-if—a game that could have been great but was left behind.

Final Verdict: 6.5/10 – A Promising Foundation, Abandoned Too Soon

• Play if: You love logistics puzzles, enjoy isometric automation games, and can tolerate jank and bugs.
• Avoid if: You need polish, narrative, or post-launch support.
• Legacy: A cautionary tale in indie game development, but one that still has lessons to teach.

Automation Empire is not a bad game—it’s an incomplete one, and in the world of gaming, that might be the most frustrating fate of all.