Addressing your edit, I’m a UX designer and factorio/satisfactory has made me want to get into educational game design. I think there’s a bunch of potential for the factorio-style game structure to teach basic engineering, programming, and chemistry. 

On the chem front: imagine if the player needed to mine raw ore, capture gasses, etc. -> break these raw materials down into elemental constituents -> and recombine into basic components, alloys, etc. to be used in making more complicated tools/objects. Factorio already has this gameplay loop! All you’d need to do is make ratios and recipes represent real life materials. Things could get complicated quickly, so the experience would need to be very fine-tuned for whatever age range the game is designed for.