Over 2000 hours spent in numerous manufacturing unit video games makes me a little bit of a purist, I suppose. In concept, I ought to then be the best reviewer to get pleasure from Shapez 2. However I am additionally the best reviewer to tear it aside over essentially the most minor hiccups and defects. I am the Anton Ego of manufacturing unit video games. I do not like meals, I adore it. If I do not adore it, I do not swallow.
Ah, you needn’t fear. That is by far essentially the most enjoyable I’ve had reviewing a sport, and Shapez 2 has, in my thoughts a minimum of, turned the holy trinity of manufacturing unit video games (Factorio, Passable, Dyson Sphere Program) right into a holy quartet. Its pared again, everything-is-free-forever strategy is sort of liberating, and I’ve by no means had a lot enjoyable inserting conveyor belts in my life. However 40 hours into my save file, I’ve typically discovered myself craving for a bit extra creativity within the challenges, a couple of extra curveballs despatched in my route.
In the event you’ve performed a manufacturing unit sport earlier than, you realize the drill with Shapez 2, and can have the ability to settle into its rhythm of slicing, rotating, and mixing shapes in a short time. Life begins on the centre of the world, the place a large, shape-hungry vortex lives. It needs you to feed it circles. So, you plop a couple of extractors on the close by circle deposit, and conveyor belt your new shapes proper into the vortex’s maw. Ding! The vortex is now bored of circles. It needs squares. So, you join up a patch of close by squares. Ding! Now it needs semi-circles, so you’ll want to do your first little bit of form manipulation, by slicing a few of these circles in half. Ding! Now the vortex craves semicircles connected to rectangles. Ding! Now a circle on prime of a sq.. Ding! Now the circle is crimson and the sq. is blue. Ding! Ding! Ding!
You get the thought. There are two huge factors of differentiation between Shapez 2 and different manufacturing unit builders. First is the sandbox nature. There aren’t any enemies to take care of, and buildings do not price any sources, so that you’re free to construct up or tear down belts and buildings as a lot as you want. The second is the abstraction of the manufacturing unit merchandise and targets. In Factorio, you are constructing circuitboards, gears, plastic bars, all with the top aim of constructing a rocket to fly away from the hellish planet you have crashlanded on. In Shapez 2, you are constructing shapes, for no different purpose than to feed an ever-hungry vortex who needs to eat shapes.
Cheffing shapes for a ravenous abyss means the sport does throw duties and milestone targets at you continuous, like the flexibility to color shapes completely different colors or use trains to move shapes over large distances, so you’re feeling propelled alongside by the intrigue of not figuring out what you’d make subsequent. However even nonetheless, you do really feel like issues begin to sluggish just a little because the milestones hold coming, as I hoped for a couple of extra unlocks that might actually get my mind working.
Whether or not these factors of differentiation are interesting or repulsive is completely subjective. I’ve no concern with the extent of abstraction; actually, I believe it is very intuitive. In different video games, it’s important to hover over a circuit board to learn how to make it. In Shapez 2, you may clearly see – oh, okay, in order that’s a sq. on the underside, with reverse quarters of a circle layered atop it. Cool. This sandbox strategy implies that lots of the points you run into in video games like Factorio – working out of sources, defending in opposition to enemy assaults, exploring the world for brand spanking new areas – do not exist right here, and can attraction to some gamers. However I do not suppose the sport goes far sufficient to exchange these problem-solving moments with different quandries.
Nonetheless, the sport has additionally grown vastly since I performed its Subsequent Fest demo, not simply in scale however in sophistication. One bugbear I had with the demo was that finishing duties would routinely enhance the effectivity and throughput of your belts and manufacturing unit buildings. Sounds good on paper, however really it is pissing annoying for individuals who cares about fastidiously engineering a construct primarily based on throughput ranges, solely to have these ranges change a couple of minutes later. With the early entry launch although, non-Milestone duties will grant you analysis factors which you may make the selection to spend on bettering the effectivity of various buildings – in addition to unlocking completely new buildings and options. It is a well-implemented system and a very good change which locations management of manufacturing charges straight within the participant’s arms the place it belongs.
One barely weird design selection is that Shapez 2 makes all of the buildings and belts free, however concurrently ascribes a foreign money to each copy-pasting blueprints and inserting down platforms. The procedurally generated worlds of Shapez 2 are huge and – in contrast to in Shapez 1 – largely outer house which you’ll be able to’t construct on. To achieve far-flung “form asteroids” to mine extra fascinating shapes, you’ll want to place down extra platforms just like the one which homes your central vortex, thus growing your real-estate for factory-building. The sport’s tutorials additionally encourage you to pre-build platforms for a sure goal. For instance, I spent a little bit of time placing collectively a platform which takes in eight full conveyor belts of 1 form, splits all of them in half down the center, after which outputs the 2 halves in several instructions. After that, I may simply copy and paste that platform at any time when I wanted it. Nicely, so long as I had the Blueprint Factors for pasting it, and a few spare Platforms to put down.
It is an odd, barely muddled combination. On the one hand, the issues which usually price sources in these video games, like buildings and belts, are free. On the opposite, issues which can be usually simply utterly free high quality of life issues, like copy-pasting a blueprint, have a value. Again after I performed the Subsequent Fest demo I preferred the thought of getting an additional aim within the background to toil away at, however now I am not so positive. Principally as a result of the steadiness appears utterly wacky with the prices, anyway. You achieve Blueprint Factors by inputting sure shapes into the vortex, and possibly I used to be only a bit too proactive, however I at all times had a number of million Blueprint Factors obtainable, and even the most costly copy-paste jobs would solely price a couple of thousand on the most. It feels some rebalancing could be so as right here.
However these sorts of minor quibbles are simply forgotten if you’re midway by way of a serious shape-building venture. In my present save file, I am engaged on a manufacturing unit which outputs over 4,000 of a sure milestone form each minute. After you full the ultimate form in a milestone, you may proceed to provide that form and ship it into the vortex to extend your Operator Degree, which is generally only for bragging rights but in addition offers you some analysis factors, Blueprint Factors, and so forth to your bother. It is a good contact, directly celebratory and motivational.
And when you unlock the ultimate milestones, the milestone shapes grow to be randomised, and the sport encourages you to begin utilizing logic and circuitry to create what’s referred to as a Make Something Machine (MAM) – the last word step in automation. Now that is the form of intriguing step up in complexity I need extra of all through the sport, and it is one which I hope to spend lots extra time with.
This rings very true, given how the sport realises that satisfaction is the bedrock of the manufacturing unit style, and leans closely into it. Dopamine is a byproduct of nearly each constructing within the sport, with splendidly charming animations that present the shapes really being cut up aside, rotated, and stacked atop each other. A few of this small-scale refinement is misplaced if you develop your manufacturing unit to a sure dimension and begin to spend most of your time zoomed out, copy-pasting complete platforms at a time as an alternative of particular person buildings and belts. When you get to that stage although, you’re already nicely and really within the clutches of the sport’s siren tune of mass manufacturing and automation.
Shapez 2 is a distinct flavour of manufacturing unit sport than I am used to, however executed at instances to a near-masterpiece stage which makes it very simple to dive in and take a look at one thing a bit completely different. Minor balancing points apart, all of it feels extremely tightly wound, with an enormous emphasis positioned on consolation, consumer expertise, and satisfaction. I simply hope the depth will increase over its early entry interval, with extra sorts of challenges constructed into later manufacturing unit processes, and extra causes to discover additional afield.