A factory sim that is a bit distinct from Zachtronics-style puzzle games in that it takes place on a large persistent map, rather than having a separate workspace for each level. It also has one single immovable drop off point in the center of the map. This encourages a big sprawling factory with lots of highways to move things around, but drawing roads gets dull after a while. Resource spawn points aren't movable either, and relatively sparse on the scale of your factory components, so you have a choice of either building near your hub (as near you can, as your factory expands) and drawing long roads to supply resources, or building near the resources and drawing long roads back to the hub.

The logistics are supposed to be part of the challenge, but it's not a very interesting one. I don't think I'll be playing much more of this, but I am still interested in the sequel that is supposed to come out this year.

As far as factory games go this one is very minimalist. You are literally producing simple shapes and using the different machinery to rotate, layer, and colour the pieces to meet different specifications.

There really isn't more to it than that and it's possible to complete in a short time. The art style really ticks my box for vector graphics but once you've scratched the itch there's not really any reason to go back.

For the factory fan expect the most basic experience.

This game is currently in the Humble Choice for September 2022, this is part of my coverage of the bundle. If you are interested in the game and it's before October 4th, 2022, consider picking up the game as part of the current monthly bundle.

A manufacturing factory simulator but using simple shapes

The gameplay of Shapes may look common to players who have played games such as Factorio and Satisfactory, and that’s because it is. You build a sprawling factory that continues to need to pull in more resources to create complex production lines to satisfy the current level’s needs, and each time you beat a level, the game leaves your factory and just keeps asking you to create something different or new. There are no enemies and no cost, so players can just build their lines to their heart’s desire. There’s also what feels like almost an infinite amount of area to build out towards.

This looks a little simple to play, but the challenge will come from optimizing designs, building larger features, and trying to create exactly what’s being requested. The game tells you this isn’t an idle game, and that’s true, no matter what you’re working on you can improve and increase the flow of items. There are also new pieces of machinery to unlock, and upgrades you can gain that increase the efficiency of different pieces.

Pick this up if you like Factorio or Satisfactory, this is a very similar game but without the combat, it also feels unique. If you haven’t tried those games, you should, but this is also in that same area as Zachtronics titles, where the goal is more puzzling out more efficient ways to do tasks. Which means this game is perfect for me. I first played this when the developer released an early version of the game on r/incremental_games and loved it.

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The factory genre stripped down to an irreducible element: throughput.

I really like fiddling with algorithms, trying to make things more efficient and elegant. But I bounce off most factory games (assembly line games? process-likes?) because they gate experimentation behind resource scarcity and acquisition.

Shapez skips all that boring stuff so you can focus on the pure joy of fucking around. Infinite resources, infinite space, no fail state. Plus, they dodge all the nasty themes of extraction and colonization that every other game in the genre stumbles into. It's just good vibes, chill music, and me going insane trying to make a rocket ship on a blue and grey background.

I'm enjoying this more than most factory games precisely because it's so chill. Nobody is blowing up my carefully laid production lines, I'm not running out of things constantly, I can just enjoy building to specifications and marvel at the larger and larger tangle that results. Almost feels like an IO game at times. The soundtrack is lovely as well. The only negative I've encountered so far is that the huge amounts of product required to advance later in the game can leave you feeling like you're playing an idler at times, if you don't feel like building the same factory over and over again. But the upgrades to your tools offer supplementary puzzles to fill your wait time.
Edit: Tapped out at the rocketship which, even after looking up the solution, tipped my fun/aggravating scale in the wrong direction. Still had a lovely time until then.