Hello everyone!
Put it in your calendar, our Early Access release should be in Mid-August! We’re 97% sure we’ll make that, so while the odds are very good it’s not completely impossible that we’ll still need to reschedule.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/
What can you expect from the Early Access version of the game? We’re glad you asked!
Early Access Release Status Update
Generally, we think the game is in great shape with plenty of polish already! There are so many improvements over the first game that shapez 1 now feels more like a prototype for shapez 2.
In no particular order, there are:
- Multi-layer factories
- Trains
- New research system
- Fluids
- Blueprint library & toolbar
- Lots of quality of life improvements
- Crystals
- Pins
- Multiple progressions,
- Customizable map generation,
- Mirrorable buildings,
- Platforms
- Undo/redo
- So much more!
We also have a very high quality standard that we want to meet, so we have invested a lot of time in optimizing the user interface, onboarding & tutorial and making sure you have a smooth experience!
Launch Month!
We are now aiming to launch in Mid August. This is around 97% confirmed so while we are pretty certain, please don’t be mad if we have to reschedule it!
Our Plans for Early Access
Generally, we think the best time to get started with the game is already during Early Access. During Early Access, we will be mostly working on adding big new content iterations every few months that justify picking up the game again. We will of course release hotfixes and so on, but we believe fewer, bigger releases make more sense than more numerous smaller increments. Less frequent releases also allow us to work more effectively on bigger updates.
For these bigger updates we want to try more experimental things like new game modes with bold changes that we didn’t want to try for the main game mode. However, we will decide what to work on based on surveys that we’ll run after the release! After all, we want to work on things you actually care about!
Of course there may be issues (minor bugs, unfinished or non-optimised visuals, etc) but we’re not using Early Access to put out an unfinished game for testing - for us Early Access is a way to get feedback and show our commitment to updating the game!
We want to make sure that you can make an informed decision about whether to jump in with the Early Access launch, so here’s an overview of what to expect…
What’s looking good for Early Access
Game Design, Progression & Balance
We are happy with how the game design is going. The overall progression and balancing feels very nice already. Obviously this is always an on-going part of development and we will continue to fine tune based on your feedback.
We also got way more done than initially planned - if everything goes well, we will launch with 3 progression modes - Normal, Hard, Hexagonal. This does depend on how the final weeks leading up to the launch go, but we’re hopeful!
Usability
We have invested a lot of time to make sure the belt placement & general UI/UX is as smooth as possible. There might be an initial learning curve, but after that it should feel pretty natural - even elegant!
We are also currently working on doing the same improvements to the Space Belts & Trains and are confident we’ll get that in for the Early Access launch as well. A few minor things might not make it, but we have them tracked and will do our best to fix them as soon as possible.
Technical Systems
The game is very stable and you shouldn’t see much in the way of crashes. However, it’s not impossible that you will encounter some issues with DirectX 11. If that does happen, you can try switching to Vulkan or DirectX12. We don’t do anything vastly different to other Unity games, so if you can run most Unity games fine you should not run into any trouble with shapez 2.
We are also still planning improvements to our input system for people who want to use exotic configurations or rebind modifier keys like ‘Shift+C’, which will cause issues in the initial Early Access release.
Performance
We are already very satisfied with the rendering performance, and we are constantly improving the simulation performance, with the ultimate goal of simulating around 500k-1 million buildings well. To put that in perspective, you need about 15k to complete the game, and currently we can simulate around 100-200k.
Rendering performance is another area we will continue working on, but with average setups you should already enjoy smooth performance. However, on low end setups, you might have to reduce the graphical settings to achieve your desired frame rates, since additional effects or very detailed 3D geometry can drag down the performance. There are also some individual animations which are not yet optimized for performance (like the vortex animation), causing unnecessary high GPU load. These will of course be improved.
Also, every setup, driver, OS is different, and we need more data from players to optimize the game for all the different combinations, so please let us know if not everything is running smoothly for you yet!
Reusability of Factories
Already vastly improved since the demo, there are even more big improvements planned for the Early Access release. We don’t know exactly how far we’ll get with this by the time of the release, but we will of course be working to make things even better throughout the Early Access period. In fact we are already working on a new “Operators Badge” mechanic that will also improve this, but more on that later!
Wires
We initially thought wires would not make it into Early Access, but a fun weekend of prototyping them changed that! The wire system has grown quite a bit but never got the attention it deserved, which is why there are a few issues we still need to iron out. So to be clear, they are fully functional, but lacking a lot of quality of life features.
Our patrons are already building Make Anything Machines with them, even for crystals. There’s around 25 wire buildings, although that number is inflated by logic gates and simulated buildings.
Here’s what we still need to polish:
- Update order is not deterministic, so you might run into issues when you build memory cells or attempt to build a CPU with wires.
- The art is placeholder, so don’t expect anything fancy - and there are issues like buildings not showing where exactly which output goes (i.e. where does the fluid input go and where does the shape go) making them harder to use than they should be.
- There is no tutorial or knowledge panel entry for wires yet, so you are a bit more on your own on them. However, they are also in no way required to complete or enjoy the game.
- The Vortex does not output the current shape signal yet, so if you want to build a MaM you have to manually input a signal.
Some wiring and a XOR Logic Gate. Signals are represented in light green (active), green (connected but inactive), dark green (not connected) and red (conflict)
To Be Improved During Early Access
There are a few areas (mostly visual and audio) where more work is needed or placeholders are still in use and we don’t have final assets yet. These will be updated and added during Early Access.
Vertical Inputs / Outputs i.e. for Pipes & Wires
This is a technical issue and we will need to refactor a good chunk of the game before we can implement something like an ‘L’ shaped pipe and actually split the pipe up into two structures. Right now every building can only have 4 outputs (right, left, up, down) and we would need 2 more (upper, lower) to support this. This is a lot of work however, so it won’t be there for the Early Access launch and may even take until after Early Access.
Artwork
There are a few items in the game that simply didn’t get their art pass in time, so they might have placeholder visuals or at least don’t live up to our standards on release:
- Pin pusher
- Crystal generator & Crystal shapes
- Space pipes (They just re-use the space belt visuals for now)
- 2-Layer Conveyor Lifts
- A rare visual glitch with shapes on splitters - this one is actually a tricky logic issue, but we’re working on it
Blueprints
We have a few items on our todo list for blueprints which probably won’t be done by the time we launch into Early Access.
- Blueprints don’t support icons yet, and there is no preview in the library, making it harder to distinguish than necessary.
- The blueprint toolbar configuration is not saved when you exit the game (a minor issue, but still).
- Blueprint placement indicators of platforms could be further improved, for example computing & showing arrows on notch inputs / outputs to make them feel more like buildings again.
- Placing huge blueprints is slower in performance terms than required right now - once placed, they should run fine though.
Sound
Most buildings from the demo in the game have sound, but we didn’t get to add sound to the new mechanics like fluids, trains and wires yet. Sound in general is something we want to improve during Early Access.
Modding
The game already supports custom progressions (there’s even a community created editor!) but it only works by copying a JSON file to the appropriate folder. Later we want to integrate Steam Workshop support and add the ability to create Code-Based mods - this is something we’ve prototyped, but it’s not ready for release yet.
We hope to see you there!
That should give you all the info you need to tell if you want to join our Early Access! See you again in two weeks!
~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team
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Check out the previous devlog:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2162800/view/4174352435291228979