100%, I find it seems to activate the exact same regions of my brain that programming does. It's especially good at capturing the flow state that makes programming fun (which is the reason many of us got into programming in the first place). But on the other hand, I find I can't play it much these days, because it ends up feeling too much like work.
Maybe someday I'll retire and be able to spend 100s of hours playing Factorio, without it feeling like I'm just putting in extra hours at work.
I recall another comment on here which explained the duality, along the lines of:
- "Factorio feels just like programming ... but without the constraints of having to be reliable, or having to do what other people tell me to" => fun.
- "Factorio feels just like programming .... but I don't get anything out of doing it" => not fun.
Maybe someday I'll retire and be able to spend 100s of hours playing Factorio, without it feeling like I'm just putting in extra hours at work.