Frantic Factory

We won't claim that working in a factory is normally a lot of fun. We once worked for two weeks in a factory that made household cleaning products, and we still shudder at the smell of furniture polish.

But that's a normal factory. The game in question here is about a frantic factory, which sounds far more exciting even before knowing exactly what goes on in one of those.

What does go on, it turns out, is a lot of incomplete production lines and unbuilt machines. Frantic Factory is a puzzler which provides you machinery in assorted shapes, bits of conveyor belt, and other ingenious devices such as transporter pipes and teleporters, to slot together and join up the production line from its predetermined start to its finish point.

Sounds better than packing boxes full of dusters and toilet cleaner, doesn't it? Well, yes, and we can happily confirm it's really a lot more fun than that.

Like any good puzzler, Frantic Factory begins very simply with a square room and two points which just need connecting with conveyor belt. The money you win for completing the level is shown in the top right of the screen, and this ticks progessively reduces the longer you spend on the task.

Gradually though, new elements are added. Checking your inventory at the start of each level reveals which equipment you have at your disposal. If there are machines in it, all of these must be used in order for the finished product to be created and taken to the end of the production line.

These machines range from inconspicuous, easily slotted in squares, to mammoth beasts which seem almost impossible to fit into the room. Added to the issue of just fitting in their bulk is the task of making sure their entry and exit points are correctly placed. This can be experimented with by rotating machinery, done with the '3' button.

Then there are gates, which won't open unless you've designed your line to hit various switches in the room first. But not all items are there to cause a logistical nightmare. Teleporters, for instance, handily zap your products from one place in the room to any other place – good for overcoming brick walls or if you have to double-back over machinery you've laid to reach the exit. Teleporter pipes work in much the same way, but they'll only cover a limited distance and must travel in a straight line.

All of this variety, and the lateral thinking required to solve each new level, makes Frantic Factory compelling stuff. The time limits aren't tough so there's the possibility to play around with the machinery and different combinations – which is just as well because trial and error plays a big part in the game.

It all looks detailed and cute, too. When you hit the left soft button, for instance, the production line bumps into life and products start scrolling along the conveyor belt. Boxes of chocolates are gradually built with the various machines which puff out smoke come as they perform their duty. You can't help but feel a little tug of pride as your product travels off on the most convoluted route around a factory floor ever, which has taken you the last 15 minutes to work out.

Our only gripe is with the game's controls, which are a little fiddly. A spanner icon can be used to reset conveyor belts so they go in a different direction, but sometimes we found they didn't seem to want to change so machinery had to be deleted or conveyor belt re-layed to get it all to work properly. It's not that easy to delete things, either. You need to scroll to the bin icon then highlight items to erase them.

Still, when a game is this addictive, you don't mind persevering with controls. And Frantic Factory is unique, endearing and supremely challenging. Don't be put off, though – you do get three difficulty levels to choose from. Easy can be completed within 30 minutes or so, but the next two get super tough and have enough levels to keep you product packing for days.

Try it out and you might be surprised just how entertaining factory work can be. It's almost made us want to try out for real again.