Shapez2

I've always been interested in systems of any kind. Computer systems, hifi systems, management systems, inventory systems, and control systems like you see in automated factories. So factory games have always had an appeal.

I spent quite a lot of time in Factorio, but never to the point of "beating" the game (sending a rocket to space). Lots of spaghetti, ad-hoc structures, and little planning. For some reason, Factorio grew to be a bit of a chore, so I drifted away from it.

Shapes2 has a different approach. Resources are unlimited, the structures you build early are dispensable (so you don't pay later for early mistakes), and the point is more to solve the puzzle of how to create the required shape for delivery to the vortex. Once you have the shape, then you can take time to optimize the machine that makes it, there a no time limits, just delivery targets and milestones.

This makes it an ideal game for me, where I can either get completely engrossed in in for hours at a time, or just take 15 minutes to make some tweaks and optimise a single part. As you progress, the game scales up and become more complex, but by the time this comes, you are feeling pretty good about what you've done so far, so it's not intimidating.

At the time of writing I'm still running through the tutorial to get my "operator badge" and unlock all the component machines. I'm starting to move my "milestone shape" generators away from the vortex, and delivering them complete to the vortex platform, and in the process learning how poorly optimised they are. I'm still perfecting some designs for specific processes, like stacking, and cutting, and painting, and will link to some of the designs in other posts here.

If you like factory games/simulations, I can strongly recommend Shapez2, and I look forward to sharing more as I get deeper into the game.