shapez 2 News

Hey everyone!

It’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally here: we now have a Reveal Trailer for shapez 2!

[h3]Watch it on YouTube:[/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

Shapez 2 is all about building the biggest shape-producing mega-factory you could imagine. With the infinite canvas of space to exploit, it’s up to you to create a machine that can extract, cut, paint and assemble the shapes you need to progress and grow your factory. Start off with the humble gray circle and work your way up towards increasingly more complex shapes while unlocking new machines, upgrades and modes of transport along the way.



You can play shapez 2 however you like! Make a spaghetti belt factory even you no longer understand, or optimize every little detail in the production process. Make one big mega-factory, or split the production chain across multiple smaller factories that you connect by space trains. There’s no threat of alien invasion or worse: running out of resources. Take your time, experiment and build a factory you can truly be proud of!



[h2]Thank you for your support[/h2]

Whether you’ve been with us from the early days of shapez.io or are only passing by just now, we thank you for the time and support we’ve received over the past couple of months and years. We owe much to the community, and without you, shapez 2 simply wouldn’t be possible.

[h2]Help us test the game[/h2]

Eager to give the game a go? You can join our Discord server to access the public build of shapez 2 and give us feedback on the gameplay and the stability of the game. If you’d like to support us early, head over to our Patreon! Patreon supporters get access to the latest alpha build whenever a new one releases. Together, we hope to bring the Early Access of shapez 2 to you in 2024 in the best possible shape it could be.

Be sure to wishlist shapez 2 on Steam! Indie games like shapez 2 heavily rely on wishlisting to reach a broader player base. We’d really appreciate your support, and you’ll be kept up to date with news about the game!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/


[h3]Join the community:[/h3]

Twitter / X YouTube TikTok Discord Reddit Patreon

Hey guys!

First of all, I apologize for the short break on devlogs. We are super busy working on the reveal trailer right now (which we want to showcase somewhere in August) which is why I simply lacked the time to do those detailed devlogs!

[h2]News[/h2]

Be sure to wishlist & follow Shapez 2 to receive important updates and notifications about playtests!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

[h3]New Team Members[/h3]

Our team has grown, so that we are now 6 people in full time, and about to become 7!

Currently we are:
Tobias - Producer / Developer / Game Designer
Daniel - Lead Artist
Nils - 3D Artist
Dimitri - Game Designer (part time shapez, part time secret unannounced kiwi project)
Lorenzo - Developer
Stefan - Community support + Quality Assurance
Nicko - Developer (Starting in July)

[h3]Alpha 6 Builds[/h3]

We are currently working on finalizing Alpha 6 which will still take a while, but if you are interested in trying it out and get involved in the development process as early as possible, our Patreon Supporters already have access! Subscribing to Patreon also gives you a few other benefits, like exclusive discord channel access, live Q&As, Steam Keys and more.

Alpha 6 will probably launch as a Steam Playtest, but we will announce that in a later news post!

[h2]Devlog #007[/h2]

Alright, time for a new devlog! In this devlog, I want to go over the changes we've made since the last update:

[h3]New HUB effects & indicators[/h3]

The visuals of the central hub have been reworked! First of all, there are now indicators that show you whether the shape you currently deliver is required for any research. A red "X" means you are definitely delivering a shape that is used nowhere in the game (very useful!).

Also the hub now glows more the more shapes you feed in :)



[h3]Progression[/h3]

Alpha 6, as the first alpha, will have actual progression! We expect around 10-15 hours of gameplay already. We also made a small tool to help us balance the research tree, which you can check out here!



[h3]Overview Mode Improvements[/h3]

The overview mode (when you zoom out far) got a lot of improvements and also visualizes trains & tunnels now properly. However, it is still very much work in progress!



[h3]Megafactories[/h3]

For our trailer we started to build a megafactory already, and here are some impressions!



We still need to add a lot of graphics optimizations (a lot of things are still rendered at the highest lod, regardless of the distance) but the simulation can already simulate factories that big! The factory in the screenshot consists of around 360,000 buildings.

As you can see, the idea is that in the endgame, instead of building your buildings individually, you build modular islands (like a "stacker" / "cutter" island) and blueprint / reuse them! Basically like playing shapez 1, but you built the buildings (=space stations) yourself :)

[h3]Tunnels[/h3]

Tunnels are a way to transport shapes up to 10 space station chunks wide, but only in a straight path. We updated the visuals, although tunnels are still work in progress, game design wise!



[h3]New Placement UI[/h3]

When placing space stations, you now have a proper "blueprint" look, as well as indicators what shapes you are about to mine:



Same goes for buildings:



And you now also get indicators during placement:



[h3]Improved Research UI[/h3]

The research UI has been improved quite a bit. The main milestone is now shown much more prominent, and you can now also see which milestone unlocks which upgrade:



[h3]New shape patch visuals[/h3]

The shape patch got reworked, and you can also see the reworked materials here:



[h3]HUB Island Improvements[/h3]

The HUB island has been improved visually, but there are more changes to come!



Also the notches have been improved, and they now glow when a catapult is placed:



[h3]Updated pipe meshes[/h3]

Pipes have been updated (even after the last devlog) and also upward/downward pipes now show the fluids correctly:



[h3]Updated Shape Miner + Extractor Visuals and Animation[/h3]

The shape miner space station has also been improved and now has a (WIP!) animation:



The extractor is now also connected to the shape patch:



[h3]Updated Main Menu[/h3]

Finally, here's a screenshot of the updated main menu:





----------


I hope you enjoyed the devlog and the new style of showing the changes from the last update! Wish you a great start into the week!

~Tobias

PS: All screenshots are taken from Alpha 6, which is already available to our Patreon supporters.


[h2]Wishlist Shapez 2[/h2]

Be sure to wishlist & follow Shapez 2 to receive important updates and notifications about playtests!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

Hey everyone!

Today I wanted to give you some insights about the fluids in Shapez 2!

As always, be sure to wishlist & follow Shapez 2 to get a notification on important updates:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

Alright, so let's dive into the devlog!

[h2]Devlog 006 - Fluids & Painting[/h2]

[h3]Recap - Shapez 1[/h3]

Shapez 1 didn't have fluids, and colors were simply items that you could mine, just like shapes. The painter would then take those items as an input and modify the shape color:



This worked, but for Shapez 2 we wanted something more interesting and also more "visual" and easy to understand. This is why we are introducing fluids:

[h3]Fluid Extraction[/h3]

The first step to acquire fluids is to find a fluid resource on the infinite map. In the area close to the HUB you will be able to find the 3 primary colors: red, green and blue. Farther apart, we can imagine that there will also be secondary colors, but that's not settled on yet.



We still haven't figured how those fluid resources should look, so they are still placeholders in the game.
Daniel already made some concepts for them, but all of these are super early!



Once you found a resource to mine, you can place a fluid extractor island on it. Again, this is only a placeholder:



There is already a concept for it as well, but again, very early!



On the miner itself, there will be a fluid patch, similar to the shape miner, where you can place pumps to extract fluids. Pumps currently extract 1200 Liters per minute, but this is not final. Currently the unit used to measure fluid volume is liters, although we could imagine introducing additional units in case we ever want to add steam for example.



[h3]Fluid Transport & Simulation[/h3]

To transport fluids on the island, you can then place different types of pipes. There are straight, corner, junction and cross pipes. As everything in the game is open, we wanted the pipes to also be open so you can see the fluids actually flow through your factory!



Fluids are simulated at a fixed tickrate right now. Basically every pipe has a "storage" called "FluidContainer" internally. The size of that storage is 50 L for pipes currently.
Every container then stores the current flow to the adjacent containers.
When updating the simulation, it basically goes like this:

1. Iterate over all containers and "spread" fluids.
Every container can only store one fluid at a time, so once it is "tagged" with that fluid, it can only store that fluid until it is entirely empty again. More about that in the "Mixed Pipes" section.

2. Compute & propagate pressure differences
Pressure in a container is simply computed as value / maxValue. The simulation then tries to achieve a state of "balance" where all containers the system have the same pressure.
However, just trying to average the container levels won't work great, because then the throughput will be extremely low at some point.
Thus, instead of storing only the pressure, we also store a flow rate, which is determining how much fluid from one container flows to another container in one tick. The flow rate only changes very slowly, and increases / decreases based on the pressure difference.
There are still some issues that a lot of fluids simulations typically have, for example dealing with waves. But we already have a few ideas how to tackle them!

3. Clamping & clearing
In the last step, all containers that are empty are now un-tagged, so they can receive a different type of fluid again. Also in case any container did over- or underflow, it will be clamped.


While the fluid simulation can be a little technical, our goals is and was that if you just want to use fluids, it should be intuitive and "just work". With the current system in place and the visual indicators, we feel that already is the case, but we are very interested in your feedback!

[h3]Mixed Pipes[/h3]
Since mixed fluids in the same pipe wouldn't really make sense, we don't allow them. Instead, every fluid container can only store one fluid and is tagged with that. Transfer between containers then only works if they have the same fluid:



There are also buttons to flush pipes or the entire network, in case you mess up.

[h3]Secondary & Tertiary colors[/h3]

In order to produce secondary and/or tertiary colors, you can mix colors with the color mixer:



[h3]Cross-Layer Transport[/h3]

Fluids can be transported up and down, however, in order to transport them up you will have to place a pump:



The pump will limit the flow to one direction, so you can also use it as a gate to prevent backflow:



We are also considering to add a building just for that, in case it becomes a commonly used pattern.

Instead of going for an overly complex system, the rules for cross-layer transport are very simple: Fluids only go up in a pump, and they go down in regular pipes. This should be very intuitive and still allow for some interesting designs. However since it's not final - let us know what you think!

[h3]Buffering[/h3]

In case you want to store some fluids, there is also a fluid tank, and because of the cross-layer pipes, you can also stack them on top of each other:



Keep in mind that, because the simulation effectively averages the pressure, the tanks will only fill once you have a surplus of fluid in the system.

[h3]Painting[/h3]

There will be different types of painters in the game, for now we have planned a topmost painter and a full painter. The topmost painter only paints the highest layer of a shape where as the full painter paints the whole shape (and needs more paint in exchange).

Here's an early concept of the topmost painter in action (the animation is currently broken):



As you might have seen, there are multiple inputs - and again, due to the multi-dimensionality of the game, you can build some pretty cool & compact setups!



[h3]Fluid Packing & Cross-island transport[/h3]

If you read the past devlogs, you might wonder how you actually transport fluids between islands, since there is no building space for pipes in between.

Disclaimer: The following mechanics are work in progress and we don't know whether they will end up exactly like this in the game. However, let me explain what we have right now!

To transport fluids, first you have to produce barrels. Barrels are produced from shapes, and the size & color of the barrel depends on the used shape:



Once you produced the barrels, you can now fill them using the fluid packer:



Then transport them between islands and unpack them again.



Since barrel production is pretty slow, you can also recycle the production by returning the empty barrels again (as seen in the above gif)

We are not 100% certain this feature will be a great fit, so be sure to leave your feedback on it, so we know whether you like it or not!

[h3]Color Blind Support[/h3]

As soon as colors are a crucial part of the gameplay, we have to think about color-blind support as well.
We are still looking for good ways to make it easier in case you are affected, such as patterns, or different symbols for fluids. If you have any ideas please let us know!


[h3]Wishlist Shapez 2[/h3]

I hope you enjoyed the devlog, and I wish you a nice remaining weekend!

And as always, be sure to wishlist & follow Shapez 2 to get a notification on important updates:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/


~Tobias

Hey everyone!

First of all, I want to apologize for the late devlog. A lot of stuff is happening right now, and it's hard to find time in between!

[h2]News[/h2]

We are slowly growing the team - last week we welcomed Lorenzo who will help with the Development, so there are now 5 people working full time on shapez 2!

[h3]New Soundtrack[/h3]

Shapez 2 will ship with 40 minutes of soundtrack from Petter Sumelius, the composer who also made the amazing shapez 1 soundtrack!

Additionally, there will be a supporter edition that will add additional 40 minutes of soundtrack to the game, composed by Petter as well!

[h3]Wishlist shapez 2[/h3]

Be sure to wishlist & follow shapez 2, so you get a notification on any significant updates!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

And if you want to try out the current alpha, be sure to join the shapez 2 discord!

[h2]Devlog - Research, Progression & Blueprints[/h2]

Please note: A lot of content shown here is subject to change. While we are already satisfied with the new research system, we can not guarantee it will end up exactly like this in the final game.

[h3]Recap - shapez 1[/h3]

In shapez 1 you had a linear level system, where you had to deliver one certain shape to complete the level and unlock the next technology.
Additionally there were 4 different upgrades where you could increase the speed of buildings.



While efficient, this system leads to some issues. First of all, having a purely linear structure means that even if the next level contains a building / technology you don't need or want, you still have to unlock it to progress.

Additionally, it means that the replayability is not really good, because every playthrough looks exactly the same, without a lot of meaningful choices.

Which is why for shapez 2, wanted to rework the system.

[h2]What we tried - and didn't work[/h2]

Our first approach making a big research tree. There was a "main" goal section in the middle, but otherwise it was just all research nodes in one single tree:


(The image is quite large, you can click to enlarge it)

However, during playtesting, it showed that this was way too confusing. It was almost impossible to figure out which upgrades to go for next, which ones were more important or even required, and which not.

Thus, we decided that we needed to go for a hybrid approach instead.

[h2]New approach - Categorizing upgrades[/h2]

To make the upgrades easier to understand, we started separating them into 3 different categories:

[h3]Milestones[/h3]
Milestones are upgrades that unlock new technologies which allow you to produce new types of shapes. These upgrades are required for the progression within the game and can not be skipped, for example painting shapes. Milestones are supposed to be large goals you work towards for a while, while also pursuing other goals in the meantime since they can take a while to complete.

Basically we went over all upgrades and asked the question "Will the game experience be bad if the player doesn't unlock this?". For the current alpha, we already ended with 14 milestones, although we plan to add a lot more content, even for the early access release.

[h3]QoL Upgrades[/h3]
Quality-of-life upgrades are upgrades like the storage, counter-clockwise rotator, decorations, labels and so on. These are upgrades that you can go for if desired, and they can make a lot of sense for your factory, but they are not required to progress in the game. Thus, you have a lot more choice if and when during your playthrough you want to unlock them.

[h3]"Flat" Upgrades[/h3]
Flat upgrades are upgrades like Belt Speed, Platform Limit, HUB Size which just have different tiers (i.e. Belt Speed 1, Belt Speed 2, ...). Those upgrades are supposed to be infinite, but we haven't figured this out exactly yet.

[h3]Organizing the upgrades[/h3]

To connect the upgrades together in the research UI, we started with a linear progression at the top.
We put the milestones in a linear order, which is very similar to the levels system in shapez 1.



Then we started categorizing the QoL and Flat upgrades into different categories like Transport, Processing, Fluids and so on. Each category got their own little tech-tree, in which you can unlock the QoL upgrades, as well as an area at the bottom for the flat upgrades to better separate them:



The QoL and Flat upgrades can depend on previous upgrades, as well as milestones. For example, if a QoL upgrade requires red circles, it will most likely depend on the "Painting" milestone. This is also shown so you have an idea which shapes you can already produce, and which ones need new technologies first.



You can also pin all upgrades to your screen to track them:



With this change, you now have a lot more control when to unlock optional upgrades, while still having a guideline through the game progression! While we really like the new system, we'd love to hear your feedback and thoughts on it though!

[h3]Random Goals - Replayability[/h3]

While the new system makes the replayability a little better, it's still not great. Thus, we are planning to add a "seed" to the research tree.

All shapes you have to produce are then randomly generated, instead of predefined. There is a standard seed (0) which is the default research tree, but you can enter another seed to get an entirely different set of shapes.

This means that whenever you want to start a new playthrough of shapez 2, you don't end up having to produce the same shape again and again, but instead every time it's a new one!

Additionally, this also allows us to have a much better difficulty setting than just increasing the amount of required shapes for every goal:

Basically, we will develop an algorithm that allows to create a shape requirement, given a set of currently available technologies and desired difficulty. The more difficult, the more steps (like cut, rotate, ...) and resources need to be chained to produce the shape.

If you then play on "easy" difficulty, you will get shapes that require far less steps than on "insane".
Of course, in the beginning of the game both modes will still require simple shapes (since you can't produce more complex ones) but especially in the end of the game it will be a huge difference!

We hope that this makes the game a lot more replayable and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!


[h3]Blueprints[/h3]

A big, if not the biggest complaint in shapez 1 was that blueprints unlocked a little late.
Basically the issue with blueprints is, the earlier they are unlocked, the simpler the blueprint shape needs to be (because you can't produce more complex ones at that point).

For shapez 2, we wanted to change this, so we came up with the idea of blueprint points:

You unlock blueprints very early, and in order to gain the blueprint points (BP), you need to deliver a certain shape which is then converted into points:



Once you unlock new milestones, you also unlock new shapes you can deliver to more efficiently generate the blueprint points:



Basically if you deliver the left shape, you get 1 blueprint point, whereas you get 100 if you deliver the right shape.

Copying structures or islands then cost blueprint points, and exponentially more the larger the blueprint or island is:



This allows us to make blueprints available a lot earlier, but still having interesting blueprint shapes later in the game!

Let us know what you think about this as well!

PS: There will also be a blueprint library - you can already share and load blueprint strings in the current alpha, but we want to make it easy to also create collections of blueprints, store them, share them and so on! But more on that in another devlog!

[h3]Wishlist & Follow Shapez 2[/h3]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/


Have a nice remaining weekend, and I hope you enjoyed reading the devlog!

~Tobias

Hey guys!

In this devlog I wanted to share some insights how the map in shapez 2 works, which is mainly based around the concept of building space stations platforms.

Here's a quick screenshot of how the islands look like, although it is already outdated:



However, to understand why the concept ended up the way it is, we need to look at how shapez 2 evolved:

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This devlog includes a lot of old screenshots, alpha footage and placeholders. The final game will look very different!


[h2]How it started[/h2]

Back in July 2022 when I started prototyping shapez 2, this is how it looked:



As you might notice immediately - I actually started with a hexagonal grid. This originated from a survey on the shapez 1 discord, and was basically my starting idea to distinguish shapez 2 from shapez 1:



It quickly evolved, and starting from the beginning I already wanted all machines to be open:



However, once I actually started to implement basic belt placement, I ran into the first issues already.



Placing straight belts on a hexagonal grid is possible, but only in 3 directions. This leads to weird looking sharp-turn belts. Disabling sharp turns didn't make it any better though, since then connecting machines got really annoying, and you still can't have straight belts in all directions:



Additionally, symmetry and tilable designs are possible, but work very differently in a hexagonal grid:



Which is, after long consideration, I decided to drop the hexagonal grid, in favour of allowing to build multidimensional factories (which we will cover in another devlog!).

[h2]Infinite map?[/h2]

I definitely wanted to have an infinite, procedurally generated map for shapez 2. However, to make it look more interesting than in shapez 1, initially I wanted to introduce a concept of "Biomes". Biomes could be areas that contain exclusively red color patches for example. This would also incentivize the new mass transport features.

Here is a first overview how it looked with those different biomes:



The result was not pleasing, but because I wanted to keep shapez 2 abstract, I couldn't just introduce styles like "Forest " or "Water" which would have made it more interesting.

Thus we came up with the "Islands" concept (they are still called like this internally), which evolved around the idea of, while still having infinite space, having to build the playable area yourself:



The idea was that you could craft islands by using shapes:



Basically better islands would cost more and/or better shapes, and they could also have shape and color resources.

After a few iterations, we simplified the crafting dialog:



However, while playtesting, we found that the crafting mechanic wasn't really interesting. The main issue was that the organic factor was entirely missing, thus every playthrough would be the same. And I didn't want to introduce randomness into the crafting, since that would not fit the concept of shapez.

To fix this, we decided the resources should instead spawn procedurally on the map again, and to mine them there will be special miner "islands":



Here is an early screenshot of the map, although the resource distribution is temporary and will change!



I hope you can already see at which scale you'll be able to build within shapez 2!

[h2]Modular Designs[/h2]

Another feature of the islands was allowing to build modular - the idea was that in the lategame, you no longer have to build individual islands but instead you have an island that contains only cutters or stackers and you can rearrange them - building on a much, much larger scale. The idea was basically that these modules are like a building from shapez 1, but instead it was built and designed by yourself!

(If you want to find out more about building modular, Giantwaffle showed it during his exclusive stream of the alpha)

This is a first draft how I wanted it to work:



[h2]Art Style Change[/h2]

During the transition, we also introduced an art style change, which is a topic for another devlog!
However, because we changed to an "Abstract Space" style, the islands now became space station platforms:



[h2]Island Layouts[/h2]

I wanted to have different layouts of islands which allow for interesting combinations, while not being too simple. Inspired by the idea of "Pentominos", every island consists out of chunks which are up to 16x16 tiles large.


(Image source)

The layouts for the islands are not determined yet, but we will try to make sure that every layout has a use and it doesn't get too much of a puzzle (i.e. there should be some puzzle aspect - but it could also get very frustrating if the layouts don't fit together nicely).

[h2]Inter-Island Transport[/h2]

Additionally to the mass transport (trains - covered in another devlog) we of course also need local transport between islands.

To make the islands actually meaningful, it was clear that we can not just allow transport on all sides of the island. Otherwise, there would be no actual difference to an infinite map.

Thus, we came up with the idea of "notches", only allowing to transport shapes at certain locations of an island:



The concept is very simple: There is a building (we call it "belt port" internally) that allows you to catapult shapes over a certain range. Because the distance between two islands is higher than the maximum range of the belt port, transport is not possible. But because the "notch" has 4 tiles that are closer to the other island, these are the places where you can exchange shapes between islands.

A notch allows for 4 of these buildings per layer - so once having unlocked 3 layers, that means effective 12 belts throughput (throughput of the belt ports is identical to the belts):



Notches are displaced, so that if both islands have a notch at this location, you actually get twice the throughput:



As you can see, they are also bi-directional (which is actually something we are considering to change - let us know what you think!)


[h2]Island costs[/h2]

We spent a long time thinking about the costs of the islands. Since we removed the crafting mechanic, at this point the islands were entirely free to place.

The first idea was to make them still cost a certain shape. However, then we figured it makes a lot more sense to instead keep them free, because it would fit the concept of shapez best - buildings are free as well, after all.

This incentivices playing around with the islands, rearranging them, deleting them without having any penalty attached to it.

To still reward building optimized factories, we then introduced a "limit" to the maximum chunks you can place, which can be increased via research. Every island consists of multiple chunks (as shown above), so larger islands are more "expensive". But because it is just a limit and not a cost, you can just play around find out what works best for you!



As you can see, the cost if the island (4 chunks) is shown when placing it, as well as the current usage and the limit.

Of course, the limit can be increased via research, and we actually want to make it an infinite research so your factory can grow forever!

[h2]Further topics[/h2]

Writing this devlog has actually been incredibly difficult, because there are so many more topics I could dive into, but even writing this together already took quite a while! (Which is why I had to delay it by one day).

However, I wanted to already give you an insight on what topics you can expect from further devlogs:

- Fluids & Fluid packaging
- Multidimensional factories
- Crystals
- Trains
- Research Tree
- New blueprint system & currency
- Art style change
- ... and so much more!

If this was an interesting read to you, please let me know in the comments so I know the devlogs are appreciated!

And if you want to stay informed about the upcoming devlogs, giveaways and more, please follow the Shapez 2 store page:

[h2]Follow to get updates[/h2]

PS: In order to get updates, be sure to wishlist AND follow Shapez 2, since just wishlisting doesn't give you any notifications on new events & updates!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/


Have a nice remaining weekend!

Tobias