Fabricating Fun: ‘Fail Factory!’ Now Available on Oculus Quest and the Rift Platform

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Jan 16, 2020

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We’ve got great news coming off the assembly line: Fail Factory!, the maddeningly chaotic puzzle game that kept many an Oculus Go and Gear VR gamer glued to their headsets when it launched two years ago, is now available to play on Oculus Quest and the Rift Platform!

From the same minds that turned sports upside down with Sports Scramble, Armature Studio’s first-ever VR title has been rebuilt for a 6DOF shift. We asked Studio General Manager Greg John to punch out from the factory and tell us how it went down.

What was the inspiration behind Fail Factory!?

Greg John: We were inspired by the classic comedy episode of I Love Lucy, “Job Switching,” from 1952 where Lucy and her best friend Ethel go work at a candy factory wrapping chocolates that are coming down a conveyor belt. The belt starts off slow and easy but then speeds up to a crazy rate. We built our game around the concept of operating on various assembly lines that all speed up to become a comedy of errors.

At the time (2017), we noticed a lot of VR titles were pushing towards the horror arenas, and we wanted to provide a unique environment and context that would feel fresh to both enthusiasts and players new to VR. By making a physics-based game in a robot factory with a myriad of mini-games, we delivered a brand new experience.

What motivated you to bring Fail Factory! over to Oculus Quest and the Rift Platform?

GJ: We had a wonderful experience developing Sports Scramble for Quest and the Rift Platform, and it was just a natural extension to bring Fail Factory! over to these platforms.

How long was Fail Factory! in development?

GJ: The bulk of the development took about seven months. The biggest lesson learned was that a key to a compelling experience was iteration, iteration, iteration. We spent extensive time after the game was fully functional and the content was complete to focus on polishing the game play.

What’s your favorite part of Fail Factory! and why?

GJ: My favorites are the QAP (Quality Assurance Protocol) mini-games where the player controls the massive robot. It seems to also be a favorite for many of our players, since it’s so gratifying and unique to move the arms, legs, and torso to navigate the 3D space and execute specific actions to fulfill the goals of those mini-games.

What’s next for you? Any exciting updates in the works?

GJ: We’re continuing to bring another fun and engaging game to VR players. The work has been very exciting, and with each successive game, the scope has gotten bigger.

Anything else you’d like to share with our readers?

GJ: We’d like to thank all the folks who play our games. We hope you enjoy Fail Factory! and Sports Scramble. They were a ton of fun to make.

Get into crazy factory shenanigans with bumbling robots as you juggle tasks to keep the production floor afloat. Fail Factory! awaits on Oculus Quest and the Rift Platform.