izigame.me

Shapez is exactly what you would expect from looking at the steam page. You may ask, "what's the point of just putting shapes together?" I wondered the same thing before I decided to give the game a shot. The game gives you goals as you progress, asking for more and more complex shapes to unlock methods of making even more complex shapes, so you do have goals, even if they aren't as complex as something like launching a rocket.

The thing that really struck me about the game is how much more approachable it is, compared to something like Factorio. See, when you're faced with creating something new in Factorio, you're faced with looking up a series of recipes that lead to the product you want and if you have memory issues, (like I do) then trying to remember all the steps involved can lead to a lot of time spent sorting through menus.

In shapez, everything you need to know about how to create a shape is shown in the shape itself. So instead of trying to remember a list of occasionally obtuse ingredients, you simply look at the shape you need and put it together. Imagine if all you needed to make a green circuit in Factorio was visible just by looking at the icon for one. Instead of sifting through recipes, you can spend your time actually creating the systems that craft what you need.

You also don't have to worry about actually crafting the machines and belts to make your systems work. That removes some of the challenge, but it also lets you make systems as large and complex as you like, without having to wait for things to craft. There's also no antagonist to speak of, nor an avatar with a limited reach. Just you and everything you need to make the factory of your dreams.

If you've always wanted to get into factory and automation games, but found yourself overwhelmed, Shapez is the game for you. It's approachable and intuitive, but still leaves room for complexity. Of all the automation games I've played, (which is a lot) Shapez strikes me as the perfect entry point for the genre. Even if you're a veteran of automation games, Shapez is still a more relaxed approach to automation and sometimes, it's nice to just build what I want, without worry that something is going to blow it up.