Hey everyone!
Before we get into this progress devlog, I, the tobspr team and everyone else involved with Shapez 2 would like to wish everyone a merry Christmas and an amazing 2024. It's been a wild year and we’re super proud of what we have achieved so far. We can't wait to show parts of it to you with the upcoming demo!
We will be taking some time off these holidays, but we’ll be back next year to deliver you the Shapez 2 Demo to everyone in February. More news on this next year!
If you’d like to stay up to date with all the news and development of Shapez 2, be sure to wishlist and follow the game here on Steam! It helps us out a ton. Click the button below or click here.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/
Giveaway
To celebrate the season, we're giving away a set of Shapez Cookie Cutters! They're brand new and not yet available anywhere else, so this is your chance to be among the first to build your shape production line in your kitchen. Catapults not included.
➡ Participate here! ⬅
You'll need to have Shapez 2 wishlisted in order to participate. Once you have, be sure to check out the list of other actions you can do to gain more entries and increase your odds of winning! All actions will support us directly.
The winner will be contacted at the beginning of next year.
News
Shapez Mobile Release
Two weeks ago, we released the original Shapez on mobile devices! The game features all the content of the PC version up to level 20. You can play the first 7 levels at no cost at all. The full game is available for $4.99/€4.99.
Watch the trailer:
Find the game on your preferred platform:
Alpha 15 release and Demo Early Access
We released Alpha 15 this week, which features all changes mentioned in this progress devlog. Additionally, the Shapez 2 Demo is very nearly finished, barring any bug reports and feedback we get.
If you’d like to help us test the game and get early access to our latest development on Shapez 2, consider subscribing to our Patreon!
Devlog 015
New content
We added sound effects to every building in the game to match their animations! You have to pan your camera quite close to the building to really hear it, but even if it’s just a faint sound, it adds a lot of life to the machines and makes this space factory game feel a bit more realistic. Looking forward to everyone experiencing the new sounds!
What do you mean, there’s no sound in space?
Game Design & Balancing
We’ve re-reviewed the content on the tutorial and made some changes to make hints more compact, yet efficient. They should be a lot more clear and easier to follow!
Buildings will now automatically rotate to fit the direction of the belt or building it’s being attached to. This will make placing buildings require less actions, but manually rotating may still be required in certain configurations.
Tips are now shown more prominently for a few seconds, so they’re less easy to miss. Of course, you can turn tips off if you don’t need them.
The prediction icons are now always shown on unconnected belts & building ends, as well as vortex inputs. This functions both as an indicator of what shape is being made, and a reminder that you still have work to do!
In addition to a previous change that automatically places splitters when connecting belts, this function now also applies to attaching buildings to a belt. Merging in this fashion is still being worked on.
Visuals
We improved the shape visualization and shapes now also have their LODs, the latter of which will both improve performance and make them more readable from a distance. Generally, more LODs have been added to pretty much everything. LODs are neat.
We made some changes to Rotators to make them more visually distinct from processing buildings. This comes down to applying the visual language we discussed in Devlog 013. Further changes for the Rotators will come at a later date.
Placement indicators for half destroyers, full cutters and halve swappers have been improved. Their functionality and direction are now more clear and should prevent the unnecessary frustration of placing blueprints the wrong way around.
The Vortex received a number of changes. Have a look!
In general, a lot of small tweaks and improvements were made across the board in preparation for 2024.
Development
We’ve made lots of performance improvements and the game should now run a lot more smoothly – especially on lower-end systems. You can expect an increase in FPS of up to 200%! We expect Shapez 2 to run stable on hardware as low as Intel UHD Graphics with the right settings.
We added a shader quality setting and added shaders for the lower settings.
Map generation has been vastly improved in terms of performance, with improved loading times and reducing stutter when moving around the map quickly.
Audio
New music tracks have been added. The vibes are immaculate.
We also added more interface sound effects, plus a setting to mute the audio when the game is not focused (you clicked outside the game window).
UI/UX
The game now uses ‘physical keys’ for keybinding. For the users of QWERTY keyboards, nothing will change. However, users of other keyboard layouts will no longer have to start the game off rebinding all the keys. The game now uses the physical location of the key to determine the default keybindings instead of the letter itself. For example, for AZERTY keyboards the game will now default to ZQSD instead of WASD for camera movement.
General improvements to UI and UI readability have been made, including conflict indicators, miner placement indicators, additional tooltips and several easy-access ways to get to various menus. You’ll also get a little popup dialogue when finishing the demo.
We added a feedback button to the game that will redirect you to the Shapez 2 Discord server, where you can easily provide us your feedback in the dedicated channel.
Belt catapults now show clearly when they’re not properly connected to the Vortex. They also delete belts in between a catapult and the receiver whenever they’re placed on a belt.
The main menu has seen several improvements and it’s looking amazing, if we say so ourselves! You can find a preview on YouTube below:
That’s it for now. It’s a bit of a shorter one as there are no big ticket new additions this time around. We’re very happy with the current state of the Shapez 2 demo and are super excited to let you all play Shapez 2 for the first time in February. Stay tuned for news on that soon!
If you’d like to give us a Christmas present, we’d really appreciate it if you could add Shapez 2 to your wishlist. That’s all we want this year!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/
For now, we’re gonna enjoy our holiday break and we’ll be back with another devlog next year!
~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team
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