A (relatively) recently released factory building game about processing shapes. You get dropped on a platform in a huge empty void, with some patches of squares and circles nearby, and it’s your job to cut, spin, stack, and paint them before delivering these new processed shapes into the giant hub in the center.
If you were around for the original Shapez (it used to be called shapez.io) this game is a lot like that but with a way different way of routing stuff around. Also it’s fully 3D now and surprisingly well optimised.
In the original shapez, the biggest thing to contend with is, well I dont want to say specifically “space optimisation”, but it is rather important to create copyable and tileable designs. This game however leans more into explicitly space optimisation, but this time it’s to create the most efficiently tileable factory that you can.
You see, after completing the first couple milestones to get you used to shape processing, you unlock platforms. That giant empty void around you isn’t looking nearly as empty now that you can put platforms in it. The challenge comes from the fact that each edge between platforms can only transport 8 (later 12) belts worth of items.
But here is the magic: You can copy entire platforms into your blueprint library.
So instead of having to manually drop down your factory to cut 8 belts worth of items in half, you can build a platform that takes in 8 belts of items on one side, cuts them in half, and sends the halves to the other side.
This is where the really large scale tileable designs works. It gets to a point where you’re almost playing shapez on a meta level. One small scale machine to turn a belt of shapes into a belt of halves, one large scale machine to turn a space-belt of shapes into a space-belt of halves. It gives you a lot more freedom in how you can run your factories, since you only have to manage running 1 belt into and out of each “machine”, making setting up production lines a lot easier as you only have to think in steps instead of having to worry about how to fit a bajillion belts side by side.
Oh yeah, copy pasting is free in this game on the normal difficulty, but you can raise the difficulty level to reintroduce the blueprint shape requirement for pasting.
On the shapes level though, there is one big change between Shapez 1 and 2, and thats the multiple layers. In the first shapez game (and also on the platform level), everything sits on a flat plane, and you can cross belts over using tunnels. In the shapes level though, to cross belts, you have to raise one of the belts up to the second (or third) layer, and bring it back down on the other side. Some machines such as the stacker are placed on two layers as well, so while you can place buildings off the ground, these tall buildings can’t be placed on the top layer otherwise they’d be too tall. This makes for a very interesting set of belt routing challenges when it comes to making platform level “buildings” that process entire space-belts at a time.
Fluids (right now just paint) are transported in pipes instead of belts, so you also have the fun logistics challenge of crossing pipes and belts, especially when you have walls of belts with no openings for the pipes to squeeze through. Wires are similarly transported on the same 2/3 layers as belts and pipes instead of its own specific wires layer, which makes creating the end-game Make Anything Machine a much harder challenge to create.
How many platforms you can create is limited on a normal playthrough, but the limit can be increased in 3 ways: Complete milestones for a big boost all at once, complete tasks for a moderate increase, or raise your operator level by delivering previous milestone shapes or the end-game randomly generated shapes for a small increase per level. Platform units are used by space-belts, platforms, train depots and loaders, but not rails. This means that the best way to move shapes really long distances is with trains.
Right now the game has just released but is in an early access state and is being consistantly developed and improved.
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800 £19.99
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