After watching too many Youtube videos about cursed Factorio mods, I had the horrible idea to make my own. My primary inspiration for the mod content itself was all the anagram-based word games that I play, which I adapted by making crafting/decrafting items through the spelling of their names.

Another mod called 'Word Smith' already does something similar, but there are a few key differences between our mods. For one, their mod adds letter decompilation as an extra possibility, whereas in my mod it's the only way to craft anything. Secondly, we have very different ways of converting letters and numbers into alternate letters and numbers. Our goals are very different, but they had a lot of great ideas that I took inspiration from. Kudos to name.txt for coming up with the base concept first ^w^

The mod itself is relatively straight-forward. There are a few cases where the auto-generated name from the prototype isn't the proper localised name and requires an override, and some tweaks have to be done to make progression work, but overall, it's actually not too difficult to implement.

The hardest part, by far, was ensuring everything was balanced and fun to play. The fine-tuning of the mod was continually adjusted over nearly a year as feedback from players was received and processed. Gaining access to various letters forms a sort of progression path that works surprisingly well, even if the early-game is slow.

The mod is goofy and cursed, but it's perfect for that. The mod has been downloaded over 1,000 times, which is a number I am astounded, but very happy with, and the Factorio YouTuber Neuroplastic made a video on my creation. Overall, I'm extremely satisfied with how this project turned out.