shapez 2 Steam Charts & Stats

Simple, beautiful, addictive Starting to find it repetitive, after 18h ... Amazing for the price

I still remember, years ago, when the dev personally responded to my Shapez 1 negative review. I wasn't too harsh, but I did feel the game didn't have enough depth to keep me interested. A month or two after my review, the dev replied with something like, "If you were looking for more depth, you will want to check out the latest update that adds wires." Well, now Tobias is working on Shapez 2, which I've started playing and am enjoying. Despite it being in early access still, there is considerable polish, with an obvious focus on quality of life in the UI. The best thing about the Shapez games is how different the theme is from the other games in the genre. In Factorio, there's a considerable emphasis on the enemies, and there's even gross stuff in the Space Age DLC like needing to retrieve their eggs and enemies that can hatch inside your factory. Captain of Industry too has stuff like pops that can starve, and a chicken factory (I really don't want to deal with meat production in my relaxing factory game). Satisfactory does too: you have to collect and kill slugs to enable overclocking of buildings. Why include stuff like that? Shapez is nice because it's a pure, abstract, relaxing experience that can be as chill or challenging as you'd like (e.g. building a MAM ["Make Anything Machine"]). The only things I would request from the dev as the game continues through early access is keep adding more QoL polish and ensure there's enough challenge for factory veterans (I have 500 hours in Factorio).

This is a good game, but I don't know if I would recommend it for people who are really into factory games. It's definitely not as complex as something like Factorio, for many reasons. There are no enemies to deal with, but personally I never like dealing with enemies anyway. What I think are much bigger reasons to maybe skip this game is just that its so simple. You don't have to worry about creating new buildings, you have infinitely many of them. You don't have to worry about anything taking more than 2 ingredients per step, because that's literally what every single building does. It takes two inputs and gives you a single output. Nothing more complicated than that. Shapes required to progress are not used throughout the entire game. You'll make a shape, get the required amount of them, and then you can just delete that whole part of your factory and never worry about it again. That means a lot of the logistical challenge a game like this normally has is just not present here. You don't need to worry about how to get something like green circuits to a lot of different assemblers, because nothing like that is required. Every set of shape goals are pretty self-contained. But the fact that the game is so simple means I think it would be a game that people can beat even if they don't have much experience with factory games. I've heard people say they have hundreds of hours in Factorio and never beat it, for instance. I don't think that would happen in this game. One other small problem I have is the pacing in the early game. You don't have a lot of ways of increasing production. You can't expand out to find more shapes, you don't have trains or anything unlocked, and so your production is going to be very low. There are a lot of times in the early game where I finish making a factory and then I need to wait for around 10 minutes or more because there's nothing else I can do. I think it's one thing to have high shape requirements in the late game, since that incentivizes you to actually make a big factory. But in the early game you can't do that, so the high shape requirements just waste your time for no reason. So this definitely isn't a bad game, but if you're looking for something more complex than I wouldn't recommend it.

Never played any similar games but the puzzle + automation is definitely a genre I am enjoying!

Great zen garden, feels like someone made a relaxed puzzler out of Factorio. I was worried the difficulty/problem solving would be too basic, but I have not felt that way since playing it. For context I've beat Factorio/Satisfactory multiple times each.

Played this for 3 days straight and then uninstalled it permanently because my wife was mad at me for not giving her enough attention. Fair enough. Great game though. Don't recommend if you're married to a non-gamer wife who doesn't enjoy Factorio-esque games.

[h1] I love this game but I am glad that they might be changing the default game mode [/h1] Honestly, I love this game but at the current date, I am glad that they are adding a different game mode. I know that other reviews share this sentiment so, I'll start with the pros first. I had always wanted to play Satisfactory without the resource management needed to make the machines that led to the automation but every time I played it in creative mode it felt like I had (obviously) defeated the whole point of the game itself. Not too long ago, I purchased this game and was very hesitant because I thought it would be much the same experience, where I would play the game for a bit and then rarely play it again. I was happily corrected when I found the game weirdly addicting to play and it provided the things I liked from satisfactory without the parts I didn't like from it. I would heavily recommend this game to anyone who wants a different experience from games like Satisfactory but still wants to manage resources and have a more loose, laid-back, experience of your factory building. The only thing that has restricted a bit of my game-play is, of course, the issue with your factories quickly becoming nullified right after you've hit your needed amount. I'm aware of the operator-level system but when you need to dedicate either more platforms or just more attention to other factories it becomes more of a back-burner type of thing. I also sometimes feel like it's easy to forget the side tasks that give you research points until it's too late and you NEED to get upgrades. While overall none of this takes too much away from the experience I do feel like it does hinder the game-play in the mid to late stages as you tear down hours of progress just to make something else that you won't need later. I am aware they are making a new game mode and I cannot wait to play it when it comes out and see if I can find myself enjoying the late stages just as much as when I started the save. I think that this game is a wonderful factory-building game that feels looser on its restrictions than other more active factory-building games. If you are thinking of buying this game then I would suggest testing it out and if you have enjoyed other factory games then I am 99% sure you will feel fulfilled on your purchase of this game just as I have thus far. I feel hopeful for the 1.0 release of this game

For Shapez 1 owners. Buy this without hesitation. It makes everything you loved about Shapez, even better. Excellent factory and automation game without the stress of defending your base or limited resources. Great difficulty ramp as well. Appropriately introduces new concepts at a good pace and never feels overwhelming. If you've played any other factory games, like factorio, satisfactory, and the sort, do yourself a favor and pick up this game. Highly recommended!

Shapez 2 is a captivating and brilliantly executed sequel that takes the addictive factory-building and automation gameplay of the original shapez.io to exciting new heights. Building on the minimalist yet elegant design philosophy of its predecessor, Shapez 2 expands the scope and complexity of its puzzle-solving and logistical challenges without ever losing sight of accessibility or player creativity. The core gameplay loop revolves around constructing intricate factories to process and combine various geometric shapes and colors into increasingly complex patterns, demanding careful planning, efficient layout design, and mastery of conveyor belts, splitters, and mergers. What sets Shapez 2 apart is its remarkable balance between depth and clarity—while the puzzles grow significantly more sophisticated, the user interface remains clean and intuitive, ensuring that both newcomers and veteran players can enjoy the gradual ramp-up in complexity. Visually, Shapez 2 retains the clean, vector-style aesthetic of the original but introduces subtle enhancements and more vibrant color palettes that make the sprawling factory layouts visually engaging without overwhelming the player. The animations are smooth and satisfying, turning the act of watching shapes flow through the network into a mesmerizing experience. Complementing the visuals is a soothing, minimalist soundtrack that fosters focus and immersion, making extended play sessions feel both productive and relaxing. The sound design also smartly integrates functional audio cues that assist in managing factory flow and alerting players to bottlenecks or errors. One of the standout features of Shapez 2 is its open-ended sandbox mode alongside a more structured campaign, which introduces new mechanics and shape types progressively, allowing players to build their skills and experiment freely. The campaign mode is thoughtfully designed, with increasingly complex challenges that test not only your technical skills but also your ability to optimize and scale your production lines. The game encourages experimentation and rewards ingenuity, offering multiple ways to solve the same problem, which significantly enhances replayability. Additionally, the inclusion of mod support fosters a vibrant community where players can share custom content, extending the game's lifespan and variety. While Shapez 2 is largely successful in its design, it may occasionally present a steep learning curve for those unfamiliar with factory simulators or puzzle games, and some players might find the repetitive nature of conveyor belt management taxing over time. However, these potential drawbacks are offset by the satisfaction derived from designing elegant, efficient factories and solving complex logistical puzzles. The game's performance is generally smooth, though very large factories can sometimes challenge hardware resources, a testament to the depth and scale of the systems at play. In conclusion, Shapez 2 is a thoughtfully crafted and deeply satisfying evolution of the original game, delivering a rich blend of puzzle-solving, strategy, and creative freedom. Its polished presentation, clever mechanics, and scalable difficulty make it a must-play for fans of automation and factory-building genres, as well as anyone who appreciates clean, minimalist design combined with complex gameplay. Whether you’re a methodical planner or a creative problem-solver, Shapez 2 offers hours of engaging and rewarding gameplay that continually challenges you to think smarter, build better, and refine your factories into works of engineering art. Rating: 9/10

Shapez 2 has what seems to be all the pieces to be a good factory game, it has room for min-maxing your production and somewhat complicated requirements for progress, but it definitely doesn't have the sauce to be a truly great game. It has a couple glaring problems that stop it from being enjoyable as a sheer factory puzzle system, but these are hard to say distinctively because it's all sorta interconnected in the game's DNA. The tasks/objectives system is flawed. The game requires you to do many series of tasks to get more upgrade points, but the shapes you produce for these lose all usefulness as soon as the task series is complete. These series's of tasks build upon themselves, so when you complete stage one, you then often use the shape from that first stage to make the shapes for the following stages in the series... But once you've finished the Task series, that's it, there's effectively no reason not to simply tear down everything you built for those tasks. Now, the game is fairly generous, you have nigh unlimited building supplies so there's no cost at all to putting up a huge base and tearing it all down when you don't need it anymore, but good factory games thrive off the sense of the factory GROWING, not constantly shifting and contorting, which is what you have to do to complete this game. This is exacerbated by the 2nd core issue of the game, which is that your throughput to submit objective shapes is limited for most of the game. Even with maximum upgrades on the "vortex inputs", you have 12 platforms worth of input lines at a time for basically the entire game. This means the vortex can only chew up THREE full space-belts worth of items at a time. The description on Steam would have you believe that Shapez is all about min-maxing your production but in reality, you will set up a factory to make 2000 shapes per minute of the shape that you need and wait 40 minutes for all of them to pour in. Not to mention that, because of the huge scale of the map, you can reshape/contort a factory to change the output shape, and then it will take 10 whole minutes for that changed output to make its way to the vortex since the space belts and buildings all move so slow. This is a problem when it also takes 10 minutes WORTH of production to fill out the objective/task! And it discourages you from truly thinking at huge scale, since maxing out your production will allow you to maybe double your output from the same "ore" veins, but the difference between 10 minutes worth of shape production and 5 minutes worth of shape production is meaningless. Combine that with the fact that there's very very little sense of friction in the game (everything is free, all the belts behave exactly how you would want/expect them to, whereas in a game like factorio the belts are really weird/quirky which adds a little friction to how you deal with them and makes you feel smarter for being good at it) and there's just not a ton to chew on I think. To some degree, I think some of my problems with the game could simply be solved by giving the player Train Delivery way way earlier... Train Delivery totally removes the production CAP that's on the player for most of the game. But Train Delivery doesn't address my biggest most fundamental issues with Shapez 2: Required quantities for just about anything are pretty small, and shapes rarely get "reused" and there's no cost for putting up and tearing down buildings, so there's no feeling at all that you are GROWING a factory, you only ever just shift bits of it around, and that's substantially less gratifying. TLDR: The balance of objectives are totally wacked out, you build a huge factory to make 1000 shapes per minute, and it takes 15+ minutes for the 8000 required shapes to get swallowed up by the vortex. Then you tweak the factory real quick and wait another 15 minutes for the next shapes to make it to the vortex. Most importantly: There's very little sense of growth because of how often you are redoing stuff or tearing old stuff down. Of course, this is noting that my complaints are seemingly about the flow of the "main game", but for real factory heads the REAL game starts at the Post-game, so I'll update this when I've sunk my teeth into that a little bit...