5 ms·

I bought this game a couple of weeks ago and played it for a few hours. The build system is a lot more relaxed than Factorio, since you have no enemies and you

by simias 6y ago

I bought this game a couple of weeks ago and played it for a few hours. The build system is a lot more relaxed than Factorio, since you have no enemies and you have access to an unlimited amount of elementary building blocks (mines, transport belts, splitters etc...) whereas in Factorio you have to assemble everything from elementary ores. The advantage is that it makes Shapez a lot more chill to play and a lot more forgiving. The inconvenient is that it's also vastly easier and it doesn't have quite as much depth. Once you reach the level 15 or so it starts getting very repetitive, since you're always doing the same thing over and over, just at an always greater scale. Factorio is better at varying its gameplay, the game really plays differently as you unlock trains, blueprints, drones, etc... Of course Shapez is a much younger game, so it's unfair to expect the same level of polish and variety. At any rate there's no reason not to support a nice open source game at this price, so I definitely recommend giving it a try.

overlordalex 6y ago
Then I think you'd be excited to know that there is a major content update coming on the 8th of October that adds logic, wires, and some other new components to make the late game more interesting. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the first few hours and I feel like I got my monies worth even without the upcoming update
- simias 6y ago
  Interesting, I'll be sure to try it out. And yeah I actually found the first couple of hours actually more fun than Factorio (at least once you know how Factorio works) because you get started much faster. But yeah, Shapez loses steam a lot faster too, while Factorio keeps ramping up. I think the main problem of Shapez is not so much that there aren't logic or wires though, it's that (with the exception of blueprints) you only build disposable components. In Factorio with the exception of science packs every production artifact can be useful on its own which means that you build to build to build to build... Whereas in shapez once you're done making your "blue stars in red squares with a purple circular corner" factory then you can forget about it completely.
  - umvi 6y ago
    > Whereas in shapez once you're done making your "blue stars in red squares with a purple circular corner" factory then you can forget about it completely. I started making generic "color factories" and "slicing" factories that could do things at scale and then just deleting the inputs/outputs and hooking them up to different sources to get the desired outcome.
naikrovek 6y ago
Factorio is a lot more fun for me when I turn enemies off entirely. It stops being a game of extreme panic with that single change, and you can focus on resource collection and construction. (Valid responses to that approach are valid. I'm not going to try to predict what everyone will say and address those responses before they come. Or at all.)
- aardvarkr 6y ago
  I had the same issue the first time around. My solution was to spend some time building a massive wall (using cliffs to help provide a natural barrier) around the perimeter with a belt full of ammo that refilled all of the turrets. The defenses rarely engaged the enemy but when they did it helped that they destroyed a segment of the wall instead of my base. Made it far more enjoyable to fight the buggies.
- imtringued 6y ago
  I disable mob griefing in minecraft because some mods caused creepers to explode on their own and they also had bigger explosions so there were holes everywhere. Creeper explosions don't drop all destroyed blocks so you will never have enough material to fill the holes even if you wanted to. Finally, because they very rarely destroy my own structures and I don't want that. It's not like there is any point in killing creepers in modded minecraft. The vast majority of monster loot in minecraft is worthless. If it is annoying then turn it off. It's just pointless busywork. I've played a lot of games where adding a few tweaks here and there would have made it ten times more enjoyable.
rlayton2 6y ago
I think you've hit an important point. Factorio is the widely acclaimed game it is, because it balances "work" with tools that don't make it tedious. Little things like shortcuts to "take half from a box", and "copy factory settings", to bigger things like introducing bots just as things get complex to manage on a big scale. Everything else in the game has been done before, and will be done again. The key is getting the above right to make the game enjoyable.
TylerE 6y ago
Such a sandbox mode is easily setup in Factorio, as well. You can set the conditions to anywhere from maddeningly hard, to enemies disabled, all tech unlocked from the start, unlimited resources, free construction...

by simias 6y ago

overlordalex 6y ago

Then I think you'd be excited to know that there is a major content update coming on the 8th of October that adds logic, wires, and some other new components to make the late game more interesting. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the first few hours and I feel like I got my monies worth even without the upcoming update

simias 6y ago
Interesting, I'll be sure to try it out. And yeah I actually found the first couple of hours actually more fun than Factorio (at least once you know how Factorio works) because you get started much faster. But yeah, Shapez loses steam a lot faster too, while Factorio keeps ramping up. I think the main problem of Shapez is not so much that there aren't logic or wires though, it's that (with the exception of blueprints) you only build disposable components. In Factorio with the exception of science packs every production artifact can be useful on its own which means that you build to build to build to build... Whereas in shapez once you're done making your "blue stars in red squares with a purple circular corner" factory then you can forget about it completely.
- umvi 6y ago
  > Whereas in shapez once you're done making your "blue stars in red squares with a purple circular corner" factory then you can forget about it completely. I started making generic "color factories" and "slicing" factories that could do things at scale and then just deleting the inputs/outputs and hooking them up to different sources to get the desired outcome.

naikrovek 6y ago

Factorio is a lot more fun for me when I turn enemies off entirely. It stops being a game of extreme panic with that single change, and you can focus on resource collection and construction. (Valid responses to that approach are valid. I'm not going to try to predict what everyone will say and address those responses before they come. Or at all.)

aardvarkr 6y ago
I had the same issue the first time around. My solution was to spend some time building a massive wall (using cliffs to help provide a natural barrier) around the perimeter with a belt full of ammo that refilled all of the turrets. The defenses rarely engaged the enemy but when they did it helped that they destroyed a segment of the wall instead of my base. Made it far more enjoyable to fight the buggies.
imtringued 6y ago
I disable mob griefing in minecraft because some mods caused creepers to explode on their own and they also had bigger explosions so there were holes everywhere. Creeper explosions don't drop all destroyed blocks so you will never have enough material to fill the holes even if you wanted to. Finally, because they very rarely destroy my own structures and I don't want that. It's not like there is any point in killing creepers in modded minecraft. The vast majority of monster loot in minecraft is worthless. If it is annoying then turn it off. It's just pointless busywork. I've played a lot of games where adding a few tweaks here and there would have made it ten times more enjoyable.

rlayton2 6y ago

I think you've hit an important point. Factorio is the widely acclaimed game it is, because it balances "work" with tools that don't make it tedious. Little things like shortcuts to "take half from a box", and "copy factory settings", to bigger things like introducing bots just as things get complex to manage on a big scale. Everything else in the game has been done before, and will be done again. The key is getting the above right to make the game enjoyable.

TylerE 6y ago

Such a sandbox mode is easily setup in Factorio, as well. You can set the conditions to anywhere from maddeningly hard, to enemies disabled, all tech unlocked from the start, unlimited resources, free construction...