From the outside looking in, Big Pharma seemed like one of these “factory games” to me, where you would manage a pharmaceutical company, trying to build machines and combine products into more and more efficient medicines while discovering new technologies and improving your setup at your pace. I was a bit disappointed with the scenario-based approach of the game and the more puzzle-based systems. Big Pharma is probably really neat for some people, but it didn’t scratch the itch I wanted personally!
In Big Pharma, you import resources, feed them into machines via conveyor belts to increase or decrease their potency in order to add effects or upgrade them, combine them, package them into pills and then sell these. You’ll usually have some goal (like making X money by Y date, or selling X pills) and other external factors, like a starting amount of money and competitors. You have scientists to unlock new technologies and explorers to unlock new resources, and all of that costs money. Using your machine costs money as well, importing your resources too, and it’s only when you sell the end product that you make some money back, based on a few factors, like demand for your cure, etc. You can also buy more factory room space to expand your operations.
Things get messy incredibly fast because all machines have input and output ports located in the most inconvenient places. You’ll be forced to create labyrinthine systems of conveyor belts just to get things around from point A to B. Recipes are also randomized every time you play, so there’s nothing to “learn” and you just need to re-read everything and figure out what does what. When you discover new materials or new technologies, you can build more potent and efficient machines while creating even better medicine that sells for more money but that’ll usually mean you will either need to expand or sell your old setups and recreate them, because the outputs and inputs will be all wrong, and you might need to do completely different things to your resources in order to get the new cures that you can make.
Ultimately, I felt too bothered by the constant messages about competitors doing things, world events changing how this or what would sell and the constant time pressure of challenges. I don’t think Big Pharma is bad, but it’s not my cup of tea!
