Name | shapez 2 | ||
Developer | tobspr Games | ||
Publisher | tobspr Games | ||
Tags | |||
Release | Coming soon | ||
Steam | |||
News | |||
Controls | Keyboard Mouse | ||
Players online |  n/a  | ||
Steam Rating | n/a | ||
Steam store |
Hello everyone! |
Hello everyone!
[hr][/hr] Can't wait to try trains and want get involved in the process? Consider supporting us on Patreon to get access to the bi-weekly Alpha builds as they release! Your feedback is essential to us while we're working very hard to get shapez 2 ready for Early Access. That's all we have on trains for now! We hope to soon be able to show you what trains will actually look like, but we first need some more time to get all the features in. Thank you for your time and we hope to see you again in two weeks. ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team [h3]Join the community:[/h3] X / Twitter Discord Reddit Patreon |
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This is not to say that we will never change anything about these mechanics ever again, but were confident that they are fun and work as intended leading into Early Access. Colorblind mode colors have patterns to help differentiate them if two or more colors look alike Colorblind mode these patterns are also applied to icons in the UI There are also some mechanics that are still in the concept or prototype phase and were actively gathering feedback on how they should work. Once the concept is sound, we can finalize the concept and work on implementing it all into the game. These mechanics are as followed:
Were aiming to have all the major mechanics done by the end of April. When everything is functional, its time to move onto the next phase. [h3]Phase 2: Production[/h3] This is the phase where you turn the mechanics from phase 1 into a completed package. It includes all the visuals, quality of life improvements, placement, optimization, sounds and music all in the name of making shapez 2 a nice experience. Lets go through a couple of these points. Wires are functional, but everything is still missing its visuals Fluid pipes were in already, but got some improved visuals We are always improving the simulation (dont make me link the blog again). Currently, our focus lies on the precision issues of shapes and factories that are not on your screen. This is important to make sure every shape is where it should be and the factory keeps behaving when you look away for a second. Additionally, we have lofty goals when it comes to maintaining performance for huge factories. Not all our planned improvements made it into the demo but did get implemented shortly after, so its already in a very good state compared to what you got to try. We didnt stop there though: its our goal to allow for 500k to 1 million buildings in a save on an average PC setup. For context, shapez 1 would start stuttering at 50k on the same system. Then theres our planned input rework. Shapez 2 works well with its default keybinds, but things start to break down a bit when you start customizing them. Its very easy to produce conflicts or unexpected behavior rebind Shift at your own discretion. When it comes to physical keys, there are some issues as well. For example, on the German QWERTZ layout you have to press Ctrl+Y instead of the expected Ctrl+Z to undo an action. Outliers like these are very difficult to fix, but not impossible. Other ongoing work includes readability improvements like the overview mode needing improved visualizations and a statistics panel. How long this phase will take is hard to predict, but were currently planning to spend about three to four months to get this phase right. That puts us around early August! [h3]Phase 3: Polishing[/h3] Now, the gameplay is mostly done. Theres still a lot to do though! This is where we work on the tutorial and the knowledge panels with all the necessary content. The research goals need images or videos and the game should be localized for all the major languages. Work on UI is also always ongoing, but you can now bind blueprint and folders to your toolbar! New animation when you deliver your first shape This is also the moment where we do a lot of testing of all parts of the game with the help of the community and external partners. A feature may work in phase 2 but a bug could still suddenly rear its head when youre finalizing it with an image. At this point its also time to work on the trailer for the Early Access release. The visuals will be done by this point, so we can record the footage we need. This phase should take about one or two months, putting us around September or possibly October. [h2]Early Access[/h2] So looking at this all, its unrealistic well be ready for Early Access before September. Our bottomline is to release the game this year still. The latter half of the year already seems quite busy when it comes to factory games, so well need to find a good window of opportunity to release shapez 2 and we would like the game to be ready for us to jump on said opportunity. As weve always said, our outlook on Early Access is that while the game is technically not finished yet, it should feel and play like a complete and polished game. We dont want you to think youre missing out on anything by playing it early! A lot of you tried the demo and gave us incredibly valuable feedback on the game, and the same goes for Early Access. Well be confident in the state of the game, but there are always other perspectives and ideas to explore that could make shapez 2 even better. [hr][/hr] If youd like to be part of this process and support us during development, do consider supporting the game on Patreon. It helps us fund the ongoing development costs, and gives you access to bi-weekly Alpha builds with the newest features before they go into Phase 3. Your feedback on these builds will in turn help us make a better game. Another way to support us is by simply wishlisting the game on Steam! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ That's it from us today. We hope to see you again in two weeks! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team [h3]Join the community:[/h3] X / Twitter Discord Reddit Patreon |
Hello everyone!
[hr][/hr] Thanks for checking out our progress! Again, you only have a couple days left to try the demo before it goes on cooldown. Be sure to give it a go and wishlist the game if you're into it! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ Until next time! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team [h3]Join the community:[/h3] X / Twitter Discord Reddit Patreon |
Hello everyone! |
Hello everyone!
In two weeks, your regularly-scheduled progress devlogs will finally return. We have a lot to discuss, as we've made some good progress on trains, space belts, the new pin pusher design and much more like the new vortex platform design as seen below. Thank you again, and see you soon. ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team [h3]Be sure to wishlist shapez 2 and play the demo![/h3] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ [h3]Join the community:[/h3] X / Twitter Discord Reddit Patreon |
Hello everyone! Please keep in mind that this update does not fix the known issues of the demo. We are actively working on fixing these, but this most likely wont be ready before the end of the demo period. Additionally, the new pin branch hasnt been tested as much as the main branch, so please report any bugs you may find! We recommend you play the base version of the update first before diving into the update, though theres nothing stopping you from going with the pins version immediately. Hope you enjoy the update! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team [h3]Join the community:[/h3] X / Twitter Discord Reddit Patreon |
Hello everyone! Today wed like to officially announce that the shapez 2 Demo is now officially taking part in the Steam Next Fest. |
Hello everyone!
The Demo has been localized for the following: [table equalcells=1] [tr] [th]Official Support[/th] [th]Community Translation*[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]English[/td] [td]Spanish[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]German[/td] [td]Brazilian Portuguese[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Simplified Chinese[/td] [td]French[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Traditional Chinese[/td] [td]Korean[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Japanese[/td] [td]Turkish[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td][/td] [td]Polish[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td][/td] [td]Russian[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td][/td] [td]Thai[/td] [/tr] [/table] * Keep in mind that community translations may contain errors. Be sure to report them through our Discord! [hr][/hr] A huge thank you to the community and all the supporters on Patreon for making this possible! We are super happy the shapez 2 Demo is finally publicly available, so we really hope you enjoy it. Let us know what you think! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team [h3]Join the community:[/h3] X / Twitter Discord Reddit Patreon |
Get a first look at the factory-builder game shapez 2 with the official livestream of the shapez 2 Demo, available from January 25th to February 26th. |
Get a first look at the factory-builder game shapez 2 with the official livestream of the shapez 2 Demo, available from January 25th to February 26th. |
Hello everyone! |
Hey everyone! |
Hey everyone!
Now, we have a lot more changes to list, but this devlog would become too long if we were to write them all out. So below, you can find a collapsable list of all the changes we made the past month or so, if youre interested. Enjoy! [expand type=showmore] Sprint 19
Sprint 20
[/expand] [hr][/hr] Now youre caught up! Share your thoughts in the comments below, or join the discussions on the Shapez 2 Discord server. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ We hope you enjoyed this devlog, and wed love to have you back for devlog 015! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team [h3]Join the community:[/h3] Twitter / X Discord Reddit Patreon |
Hello everyone! Of course, this is a very simplified look at the entire process. It makes sure we dont miss any crucial oversights, like animation clipping between adjacent buildings or concepts not adhering to the aforementioned design pillars. [h3]Logistic versus processing buildings[/h3] We differentiate between logistic and processing buildings. Belts, mergers, splitters and lifts are logistic buildings; they move shapes around. Buildings like cutters, stackers, painters and swappers are processing buildings; they make changes to the actual shapes, producing different shapes. The function of a building will also determine their design language. Logistic buildings have lightweight, open designs that clearly display what theyre transporting. They have unique designs per build layer to differentiate them, and have one central orange element that does something, like the pusher element in a splitter. Processing buildings should stand out and really look like buildings. They have very boxy designs and have thick, orange borders, yet should retain a unique look to differentiate them. With these differences, players should easily be able to tell the difference between the two types of buildings, even from far away. [h3]Design limitations and rules[/h3] With all this in mind, we face a handful of limitations when it comes to designing buildings, the design pillars aside. One issue were still actively working on are the supports for multi-layer buildings. As you can place buildings below these belts, the belt supports can conflict with the building below. Not having any supports looks weird, but theyre technically not relevant for gameplay. [h3]Casus 1: The (full) cutter[/h3] Anyone familiar with Shapez 1 will probably recognise the cutter: This building works well in the Shapez 1 style, but it doesnt translate well to Shapez 2. Tobias created a basic model for the cutter, which gave me a rough idea on how it should work in 3D as an open design. However, the visuals needed a complete rework. This presented quite the challenge, since in Shapez 2 the building operations are not dependent on camera rotation, but tied to the world as it were. This is necessary, as blueprints wouldnt work if the buildings would change the axis they work on. If the cutting angle would be baked into the building itself, said angle would change if the rotation of the blueprint would change. This also means youd get a different output every time you rotate a blueprint. You can see the solution below. The blue half circle indicates which part of the shape is manipulated. The same principles extend to the Swapper as well. [h3]Casus 2: Lifts[/h3] To introduce a completely new problem to developing this game, we decided to add layers. You have to be able to move a shape from one layer to the layer above or below. Lets go through all the boxes it has the mark off, shall we? Lifts should
Thats quite a lot of requirements to work with, but were very happy with how it turned out. The current design is almost a year old by now, yet its still one of my personal favorites. Not to mention you can make stuff like this: [h3]Its in the details[/h3] As we mentioned before, we went for a very polished, yet stylized look. Almost every building currently has one or two little details that you can discover if you zoom in close enough. Lets have a little peek: The belts were made to emulate the look of real conveyor belts, including a bit of suspension that holds everything in place. We made sure the UVs and textures arent stretched and decided on handling the change of direction of belts in a way where they feed into each other instead of warping. Or take a look at the painter, which is admittedly still very much a work in progress as far as shaders are concerned and will get another overhaul later. We wanted the painter to adapt to the height of the shapes coming in. So, we added a hinge and allowed the roller to move up and down as shapes of different heights are fed into the machine. [hr][/hr] We hope this devlog showed you a complete picture of our design process for Shapez 2. Of course, we also hope you enjoyed it :) If you have any questions, be sure to join the Discord server. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ See you again in two weeks! ~ Nils & the Shapez 2 team [h3]Join the community:[/h3] Twitter / X Discord Reddit Patreon |
Hey everyone! |
Hey everyone! |
Hey everyone! |
Hey everyone!
You can enable multiple layers at once, or even all at once if you hate being able to see what youre doing. [h3]Island selection toolbar[/h3] We added a new Island Selection toolbar, allowing for quick and easy access to the different types of islands you can place. Youll also be able to select multiple islands and delete them all at once. Its easy to accidentally delete a lot this way, but dont worry, you can undo everything if you mess up. [h3]Packer Building[/h3] Weve been working with the Packer and Unpacker buildings. The Packer building allows you to stack many shapes of the same type and color and pack them into one item. The Unpacker, as you may expect, does the opposite. The main purpose for these packs is to transport the shapes via train. Pack the shapes, insert the packs into a train, remove the packs from the train, then unpack everything again. Its also great for massively increasing the throughput on a belt, as long as you have enough Packers. Details on how this building will work together with trains, will come in the devlog dedicated to trains. [h3]Graphical Improvements[/h3] A lot of time has been spent on improving the graphics of the game across the board. Improvements have been made to the materials of the Space Station, all buildings, the playing field as well as global lighting effects. We hope you liked what you saw in the trailer! One of the main improvements weve been working on is LOD (Level of Detail). For those who dont know, a common technique to increase performance is to lower the LOD of models that are far away from the camera. This technique is especially important to make the game run smoothly when zoomed out, like in Overview mode. We dont want the decrease in LOD to look jarring when you zoom out though, so were trying our best to make this look smooth and as unnoticeable as possible. This is done by having multiple stages of LOD, so the transition from one LOD to the next isnt as big. Were also fading out the shadows now, instead of simply removing them. [hr][/hr] Now, were finally caught up! Again, apologies for the lack of devlogs lately. Now that the trailer is out and we have some reinforcements, we hope to bring you new devlogs every other week. If youd like to support the game, please wishlist the game here on Steam and follow the Shapez 2 page if youre not already. It really does help us out a lot. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ We hope you enjoyed this devlog and cant wait to show what else were working on! ~Tobias & the shapez 2 team [h3]Join the community:[/h3] Twitter / X Discord Reddit Patreon |
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