Hello everyone! Were getting very close to wrapping up development on the shapez 2 Early Access release build. At the end of last week we released Alpha 23 with 23.1 and 23.2 the last Patreon-exclusive Alpha build following shortly after. Were moving to Beta builds where Patreons can test the release candidate and report any remaining issues they find. In two weeks, well officially reveal the exact release date (which is set in August) of shapez 2. If you dont want to miss out, be sure to follow and wishlist the game here on Steam and join the Discord! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ If you really want to get your hands on this build before the release, be sure to check out our Patreon! Youll also get access to the betas to help us iron out the last couple bugs, the first of which released today! Your savegame will be compatible with the Early Access build from Alpha 23.2 onward, barring any unforeseen issues. This devlog will be a bit shorter as were currently very busy, but lets walk you through what Alpha 23 brought to the game. Final note, even at this stage everything is technically still subject to change. [hr][/hr]
New Content
Hexagonal Scenario
As teased in the last devlog, Hexagonal shapes are now real! Added as a separate scenario, a layer now holds 6 segments (sextants), 90 Rotators now rotate 60 and there are three new shape types exclusive to this scenario:
- H Hexagon
- G Gear
- F Flower
Hexagon (left), Gear (middle), Flower (right) The shape code works as youd expect, with an example below. Well leave the rest for you to explore for yourself :)
Train loop & Twister
We added the Rail Loop and Twister to spice up your trains. Wildly inefficient, but I'm sure you'll be forgiven. They're unlocked as part of the shapez 2 Supporter Edition alongside a whole lot of additional soundtrack!
Gif contains some placeholders
Other new things
Aside from that big ticket addition, there are a handful of other new bits of content and balancing changes.
- Added train speed and capacity upgrades, as well as an upgrade to allow you to dunk a train directly into the Vortex to deliver all its cargo at once.
- Rebalanced fluid buildings to be more intuitive and added more information in the panels.
- Supplying a different fluid to fluid buildings now makes them slowly drain and eventually consume the new fluid instead of waiting for the previous fluid forever.
- The same system also applies to trains loading a different shape or fluid.
Visuals
We added brand new visuals for Shape Miners, Fluid Miners and their respective Extensions.
Train locomotives finally have their visual!
Added new visuals for train loaders and unloaders.
Added animations for belt/fluid launchers launchers towards space belts/pipes.
Theres a new animation for shapes going into the Vortex.
Also included are several animation fixes and improvements across the board, including improvements to fluid shaders.
Development
As were finalizing a lot of things, there were lots of rendering, blueprint and simulation performance improvements. Placing blueprints and large islands should now be much faster, various issues with wire logic were fixed and weve vastly improved savegame loading times. To show off the current state of performance optimization, here's the game running on a Mac Book Pro M1 Max at full HD with 420,000 buildings. The goal is still 1 million buildings at 60 fps, but we're happy with our progress! [previewyoutube=P7VBWTGYitw;full][/previewyoutube]Video contains some placeholders
UI / UX
The origin point (the part of a building thats placed where your cursor is) of the Painter and Crystal Generator buildings was moved to the conveyor belt instead of the tank. This makes placing these buildings feel a lot better, but it does break any blueprint made prior to Alpha 23 that uses them. Theres now a button to clear the selected platform, space belt/pipe or train (un)loader of all its contents. Additionally, rail placement and the Feedback dialogue have been improved, the latter of which now has a link to report translation issues. Speaking of translations, the translations for almost all of the languages we wanted to include were added. [hr][/hr] Thats it! As we said, a shorter devlog this time. The Beta has started in order to hunt down the last issues. Once thats done, we can freeze development on the Early Access release build. Were super excited to finally release shapez 2 next month, so be sure you have the game wishlisted (sorry for asking so often) and well see you again with a big announcement in two weeks. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/
Join the community:
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Check out the previous devlog:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2162800/view/4220517501549404713
[ 2024-07-11 15:00:01 CET ] [ Original post ]
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shapez 2 is supposed to be the long-awaited sequel to the original shapez - an automation, management & factory-building game currently available on Steam - built for audiences both new and old.
Our aim with shapez 2 would be to create a worthy successor to our original title - one which has a much higher production value, more content, better replayability and, crucially, looks more visually pleasing - this means that we’d like to include many more features for you… And we’ve outlined some of our ideas below!
Though we're still working on the prototype, we've got a solid vision of how the game could look - one that we'd love to share with you and get your feedback on. We would also like to point out that funding for shapez 2 isn’t yet fully secured - so whilst we’ll do our best to see this project through to completion, the outline below is our vision for our ideal game, rather than a set of specific promises.
Gameplay Overview
The goal of shapez 2 is to build, automate, and scale your factory in order to process increasing numbers, types, and colours of shapes! You’d be building machines, placing conveyor belts, and designing vast networks in order to transport your goods. Whilst to begin with you’d be focused on extracting pure shapes from the ground, you would soon discover a vast array of colours - unlocking an even vaster number of combinations... And, well, then the fun begins.All sounding a bit familiar? Don’t worry, we plan to shake things up a bit this time… As you’ll see below.
2D + 3D
shapez 2 will, by default, have a 3D view. However - we know how crucial being able to build efficiently is, so you will be able to seamlessly toggle between 2D and 3D!Layers
Complementing our new 3D view, shapez 2 will also feature multiple layers! Whilst in shapez there was only one additional layer (the wires layer), shapez 2 will provide players with up to 3 layers to switch between. You'll be able to place buildings, conveyor belts, and wires on each of them! (And, don't worry if you like to keep things simple - the additional layers are completely optional!)View into the machines
Whilst shapez only had ‘closed' buildings (which could sometimes make it difficult to see what was going on!), in shapez 2, all buildings are ‘open' - allowing you to see exactly how your shapes are being processed! This is a big one for us - and we're hoping it'll make it easier for new players to get into the game. It'll be a much more visual process!New engine, better performance, better accuracy
We're writing shapez 2 completely from scratch in an entirely new engine! This'll allow us to maximise performance (using all available cores & GPU power), leading to vastly improved performance, even with our new 3D visuals. (It's actually insane to us how many different buildings shapez could handle, considering it's basically a website!)Islands
shapez had a very uniform map (which severely limited exploration) - and that's something that we wanted to change this time. In shapez 2 space will no longer be unlimited - instead you need to craft islands to expand your base!This feature works well with our next one… Mass Transport!
Mass Transport
With the addition of new biomes, you'll be needing new infrastructure to transport your resources over long distances! In shapez 2, there will be a mass transport feature unlockable through the research tree. (More on that later!)Whilst these may not look exactly like trains, they'll behave in a very similar way!
Pipes & Fluids
Another new addition for shapez 2 - pipes! Not only will there be a number of new fluids, but colors will be fluids rather than being transported on a belt. (Not to worry, though - you'll still be able to package them on belts with a new building that we're introducing!)Research Tree
On the topic of replayability, we're introducing a new research tree - featuring a number of branches designed to make progress less linear! Whilst there will still be a main branch (i.e. cutters, rotators, pipes, stackers), there will be additional sub-branches, allowing you to focus on each of the available buildings and unlock upgrades for them (for example, the 180-degrees rotator is an available upgrade after unlocking the default rotator. You don't have to unlock it, but if it looks useful to you, go for it!)Blueprint Library
This was a feature that was actually planned for shapez, but sadly never made it into the original game. We'll fix this in shapez 2 by adding a complete blueprint library, as well as the ability to load/share blueprints easily!... and more:
- Modding support
- New shape mechanics
- Multiple game modes
- Customizable game creation
- All-new soundtrack
- Processor: 3Ghz+ dual coreMemory: 4 GB RAM
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: DirectX 10.1 capable GPU wit 1024 MB VRAM
- Storage: 2000 MB available space
- Processor: 3Ghz+ quad coreMemory: 8 GB RAM
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: DirectX 11 capable GPU with 2048 MB VRAM
- Storage: 2000 MB available space
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