The best building games

Building games are a subgenre of engineering games in which players design and assemble machines such as planes or spacecrafts from a large number of parts. These games often use a simulation environment with an elaborate physics engine to provide rich feedback on the structural qualities — or lack thereof — of the players’ creations. Most building games include both a campaign mode with precise objectives exploring the capabilities of multiple machine parts, and a sandbox mode removing resource constraints to focus on experimentation.

The games listed below are the most favorited building games in the Thinky Games database.