Here are the patch notes (1.26.156):

• Fixed major issue with raptor combat not working correctly
  
• Fixed issue with "Paraceratherium" not being able to leave combat
  
• Fixed issue with "Brontosaurus" not showing carcasses
  
• Tweaks to "Triceratops" gather/drink threat gain and predators are now not always around but have chance to get attracted by the players presence for more exciting gameplay
  
• Savefiles from previous version are compatible

TATGG (These Are The Good Games) Now has a discord!

Featuring...
The CFP Bot!
(if somebody would teach me how to keep it running pls help)

So join here:
https://discord.gg/uHdGQpvMhX

• Adjust visual damage levels for pizza bear.
  
• Bug Fix: UI align fix for health and weapons HUD not handling screen resolution change and also getting to weird offsets.

Hello VR Rockstars!

We are happy to announce that the multiplayer update is now finally available!



From now on, you can challenge your friend, or match with randomly connected players, or, if no compatible game is found, play against a bot.
Notice: Any song should work, the only requirement is that both players have it.



At the moment, if you want to play with a friend, one should create the server and the other one should enter through quick play shortly after.
We are also working on the steam invitation system, we'll include that feature in the next update.
Note: As this is a challenge mode competing for the best final score, playing together will require you to choose the same instrument before hosting or joining a game.
Also, we are aware that some of you would like to have a co-op mode too... stay tuned for that!

We are eager to know what you think of this update. We always listen to your feedback and we are convinced that it is also thanks to you that the game is getting better with each update.


Below is a brief summary of the update:
- Multiplayer VS mode:
- play the same level 1 vs 1, compete for the best score
- play any song owned by both players
- list of connected friends
- invitation requests/join support (coming soon)
- play with a bot in case of no matching
- Improvements in guitar pick movement
- Fix for pause menu triggering
- Other misc bug fixes


Stay tuned and rock hard!

Over the past couple of months we have had some great feedback coming in. These range from suggestions about changes, additions, tweaks, and general quality of life improvements. It is now time to take those great ideas and turn them into a reality inside the game.

There are a bunch of minor changes and tweaks that players can just experience for themselves, but I would like to highlight a few changes that have larger impact on the game.

These include;

- Added logic to bankruptcy checks. Bankruptcy will now take a greater look at your company before issuing bankruptcy. Such as, stocks, monthly income, available contracts, and more. I tested the idea of extended bankruptcy time from 2 months to 6 months, but that combined with the improved logic felt a bit to easy. So, for now I have left it at 2 months post warning for bankruptcy to occur. Let me know how the new bankruptcy feels for players, I am open to the idea of extending the bankruptcy time or perhaps ranging that time based on difficulty settings, but I didn't want to make it to easy to avoid bankruptcy removing all threat.

- Revamped a bunch of player e-mails received in game. This was done to provide more relevant data as well as include game names to feedback so players can refer back to any e-mails and know what game had what issues and so forth.

- Tweaked some game balance issues. These balance changes were aimed at the mid game to late game area. I am pretty happy with the early game progression, as well as end game. However, the mid game needed to be smoothed out and these tweaks should help address that.

- A bunch of additional translation changes have been implemented. A huge thank you to all the community members who have been a critical help when it comes to translating the game for other languages. They are still not perfect, but every patch they get better and better.

- Revamped many help glossary entries to be more relevant and up-to-date. Some systems that have been overhauled had yet to have there help entries reflect those changes. This has now been rectified.

- There is also a bunch of minor tweaks and changes to many game systems as well as some of the language in game has been improved to be more stream lined and informative. I feel it is not worth listing every small change, you can just experience them for yourself. Or if your new, the game will just be better for you when you play through.

I am currently in the process of preparing the game for release on the Epic store as well. This release is slated for October this year, which gives me a lot of time to prepare the client for Epic while also working on future updates to the game. I would love to release the next major update before the Epic launch, and this future date should allow for that.

The Epic version will be no different than the steam version. So, there is no reason for a steam player like you to feel they need to own the game on Epic. However, if you have an Epic account and you want to show your support. A quick wish list would be much appreciated. You can find the GDM store page on Epic here: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/game-dev-masters-f5d8f9

Thank you to everyone for there support and feedback. Please feel free to share your ideas, opinions, and suggestions. I will always remain open to any idea that can benefit the game.

You can now manually edit the keyboard controls in the game settings. Here are the following changes in this update:

• Major keybinding update
  
• The first boss is now updated to be less 'awkward'
  
• Mini Boss Code Updated
  
• A few wall collision updates
  
• Map bug fix

Thank you to all who have provided feedback which influenced these changes. We hope you keep enjoying our game.

Tidal Rave x

Hey Survivors! Yeah! That's right! The first Elemental Survivors demo will be launched Friday, May 19!

We've been working super hard balancing and tweaking to get you this demo, and you won't have to wait much longer!

This post is all about the exclamation points! No periods here, y'all! All hype, all the time, 24/7!

What have we decided to add in the last minutes before demo launch? Well, a few new attacks so you can really create your perfect build based on your stats! Holy bash! Holy nail! Holy COW! (not really holy cow, but that gives me some ideas....!)

K we gotta get back to work! Hype hype hype!!!

Sincerely!
The Samobee Team!

Hey everyone!

First of all, I want to apologize for the late devlog. A lot of stuff is happening right now, and it's hard to find time in between!


We are slowly growing the team - last week we welcomed Lorenzo who will help with the Development, so there are now 5 people working full time on shapez 2!


Shapez 2 will ship with 40 minutes of soundtrack from Petter Sumelius, the composer who also made the amazing shapez 1 soundtrack!

Additionally, there will be a supporter edition that will add additional 40 minutes of soundtrack to the game, composed by Petter as well!


Be sure to wishlist & follow shapez 2, so you get a notification on any significant updates!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

And if you want to try out the current alpha, be sure to join the shapez 2 discord!


Please note: A lot of content shown here is subject to change. While we are already satisfied with the new research system, we can not guarantee it will end up exactly like this in the final game.


In shapez 1 you had a linear level system, where you had to deliver one certain shape to complete the level and unlock the next technology.
Additionally there were 4 different upgrades where you could increase the speed of buildings.



While efficient, this system leads to some issues. First of all, having a purely linear structure means that even if the next level contains a building / technology you don't need or want, you still have to unlock it to progress.

Additionally, it means that the replayability is not really good, because every playthrough looks exactly the same, without a lot of meaningful choices.

Which is why for shapez 2, wanted to rework the system.


Our first approach making a big research tree. There was a "main" goal section in the middle, but otherwise it was just all research nodes in one single tree:


(The image is quite large, you can click to enlarge it)

However, during playtesting, it showed that this was way too confusing. It was almost impossible to figure out which upgrades to go for next, which ones were more important or even required, and which not.

Thus, we decided that we needed to go for a hybrid approach instead.


To make the upgrades easier to understand, we started separating them into 3 different categories:

Milestones are upgrades that unlock new technologies which allow you to produce new types of shapes. These upgrades are required for the progression within the game and can not be skipped, for example painting shapes. Milestones are supposed to be large goals you work towards for a while, while also pursuing other goals in the meantime since they can take a while to complete.

Basically we went over all upgrades and asked the question "Will the game experience be bad if the player doesn't unlock this?". For the current alpha, we already ended with 14 milestones, although we plan to add a lot more content, even for the early access release.

Quality-of-life upgrades are upgrades like the storage, counter-clockwise rotator, decorations, labels and so on. These are upgrades that you can go for if desired, and they can make a lot of sense for your factory, but they are not required to progress in the game. Thus, you have a lot more choice if and when during your playthrough you want to unlock them.

Flat upgrades are upgrades like Belt Speed, Platform Limit, HUB Size which just have different tiers (i.e. Belt Speed 1, Belt Speed 2, ...). Those upgrades are supposed to be infinite, but we haven't figured this out exactly yet.


To connect the upgrades together in the research UI, we started with a linear progression at the top.
We put the milestones in a linear order, which is very similar to the levels system in shapez 1.



Then we started categorizing the QoL and Flat upgrades into different categories like Transport, Processing, Fluids and so on. Each category got their own little tech-tree, in which you can unlock the QoL upgrades, as well as an area at the bottom for the flat upgrades to better separate them:



The QoL and Flat upgrades can depend on previous upgrades, as well as milestones. For example, if a QoL upgrade requires red circles, it will most likely depend on the "Painting" milestone. This is also shown so you have an idea which shapes you can already produce, and which ones need new technologies first.



You can also pin all upgrades to your screen to track them:



With this change, you now have a lot more control when to unlock optional upgrades, while still having a guideline through the game progression! While we really like the new system, we'd love to hear your feedback and thoughts on it though!


While the new system makes the replayability a little better, it's still not great. Thus, we are planning to add a "seed" to the research tree.

All shapes you have to produce are then randomly generated, instead of predefined. There is a standard seed (0) which is the default research tree, but you can enter another seed to get an entirely different set of shapes.

This means that whenever you want to start a new playthrough of shapez 2, you don't end up having to produce the same shape again and again, but instead every time it's a new one!

Additionally, this also allows us to have a much better difficulty setting than just increasing the amount of required shapes for every goal:

Basically, we will develop an algorithm that allows to create a shape requirement, given a set of currently available technologies and desired difficulty. The more difficult, the more steps (like cut, rotate, ...) and resources need to be chained to produce the shape.

If you then play on "easy" difficulty, you will get shapes that require far less steps than on "insane".
Of course, in the beginning of the game both modes will still require simple shapes (since you can't produce more complex ones) but especially in the end of the game it will be a huge difference!

We hope that this makes the game a lot more replayable and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!



A big, if not the biggest complaint in shapez 1 was that blueprints unlocked a little late.
Basically the issue with blueprints is, the earlier they are unlocked, the simpler the blueprint shape needs to be (because you can't produce more complex ones at that point).

For shapez 2, we wanted to change this, so we came up with the idea of blueprint points:

You unlock blueprints very early, and in order to gain the blueprint points (BP), you need to deliver a certain shape which is then converted into points:



Once you unlock new milestones, you also unlock new shapes you can deliver to more efficiently generate the blueprint points:



Basically if you deliver the left shape, you get 1 blueprint point, whereas you get 100 if you deliver the right shape.

Copying structures or islands then cost blueprint points, and exponentially more the larger the blueprint or island is:



This allows us to make blueprints available a lot earlier, but still having interesting blueprint shapes later in the game!

Let us know what you think about this as well!

PS: There will also be a blueprint library - you can already share and load blueprint strings in the current alpha, but we want to make it easy to also create collections of blueprints, store them, share them and so on! But more on that in another devlog!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/


Have a nice remaining weekend, and I hope you enjoyed reading the devlog!

~Tobias

Hey everyone!

First of all, I want to apologize for the late devlog. A lot of stuff is happening right now, and it's hard to find time in between!


We are slowly growing the team - last week we welcomed Lorenzo who will help with the Development, so there are now 5 people working full time on shapez 2!


Shapez 2 will ship with 40 minutes of soundtrack from Petter Sumelius, the composer who also made the amazing shapez 1 soundtrack!

Additionally, there will be a supporter edition that will add additional 40 minutes of soundtrack to the game, composed by Petter as well!


Be sure to wishlist & follow shapez 2, so you get a notification on any significant updates!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

And if you want to try out the current alpha, be sure to join the shapez 2 discord!


Please note: A lot of content shown here is subject to change. While we are already satisfied with the new research system, we can not guarantee it will end up exactly like this in the final game.


In shapez 1 you had a linear level system, where you had to deliver one certain shape to complete the level and unlock the next technology.
Additionally there were 4 different upgrades where you could increase the speed of buildings.



While efficient, this system leads to some issues. First of all, having a purely linear structure means that even if the next level contains a building / technology you don't need or want, you still have to unlock it to progress.

Additionally, it means that the replayability is not really good, because every playthrough looks exactly the same, without a lot of meaningful choices.

Which is why for shapez 2, wanted to rework the system.


Our first approach making a big research tree. There was a "main" goal section in the middle, but otherwise it was just all research nodes in one single tree:


(The image is quite large, you can click to enlarge it)

However, during playtesting, it showed that this was way too confusing. It was almost impossible to figure out which upgrades to go for next, which ones were more important or even required, and which not.

Thus, we decided that we needed to go for a hybrid approach instead.


To make the upgrades easier to understand, we started separating them into 3 different categories:

Milestones are upgrades that unlock new technologies which allow you to produce new types of shapes. These upgrades are required for the progression within the game and can not be skipped, for example painting shapes. Milestones are supposed to be large goals you work towards for a while, while also pursuing other goals in the meantime since they can take a while to complete.

Basically we went over all upgrades and asked the question "Will the game experience be bad if the player doesn't unlock this?". For the current alpha, we already ended with 14 milestones, although we plan to add a lot more content, even for the early access release.

Quality-of-life upgrades are upgrades like the storage, counter-clockwise rotator, decorations, labels and so on. These are upgrades that you can go for if desired, and they can make a lot of sense for your factory, but they are not required to progress in the game. Thus, you have a lot more choice if and when during your playthrough you want to unlock them.

Flat upgrades are upgrades like Belt Speed, Platform Limit, HUB Size which just have different tiers (i.e. Belt Speed 1, Belt Speed 2, ...). Those upgrades are supposed to be infinite, but we haven't figured this out exactly yet.


To connect the upgrades together in the research UI, we started with a linear progression at the top.
We put the milestones in a linear order, which is very similar to the levels system in shapez 1.



Then we started categorizing the QoL and Flat upgrades into different categories like Transport, Processing, Fluids and so on. Each category got their own little tech-tree, in which you can unlock the QoL upgrades, as well as an area at the bottom for the flat upgrades to better separate them:



The QoL and Flat upgrades can depend on previous upgrades, as well as milestones. For example, if a QoL upgrade requires red circles, it will most likely depend on the "Painting" milestone. This is also shown so you have an idea which shapes you can already produce, and which ones need new technologies first.



You can also pin all upgrades to your screen to track them:



With this change, you now have a lot more control when to unlock optional upgrades, while still having a guideline through the game progression! While we really like the new system, we'd love to hear your feedback and thoughts on it though!


While the new system makes the replayability a little better, it's still not great. Thus, we are planning to add a "seed" to the research tree.

All shapes you have to produce are then randomly generated, instead of predefined. There is a standard seed (0) which is the default research tree, but you can enter another seed to get an entirely different set of shapes.

This means that whenever you want to start a new playthrough of shapez 2, you don't end up having to produce the same shape again and again, but instead every time it's a new one!

Additionally, this also allows us to have a much better difficulty setting than just increasing the amount of required shapes for every goal:

Basically, we will develop an algorithm that allows to create a shape requirement, given a set of currently available technologies and desired difficulty. The more difficult, the more steps (like cut, rotate, ...) and resources need to be chained to produce the shape.

If you then play on "easy" difficulty, you will get shapes that require far less steps than on "insane".
Of course, in the beginning of the game both modes will still require simple shapes (since you can't produce more complex ones) but especially in the end of the game it will be a huge difference!

We hope that this makes the game a lot more replayable and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!



A big, if not the biggest complaint in shapez 1 was that blueprints unlocked a little late.
Basically the issue with blueprints is, the earlier they are unlocked, the simpler the blueprint shape needs to be (because you can't produce more complex ones at that point).

For shapez 2, we wanted to change this, so we came up with the idea of blueprint points:

You unlock blueprints very early, and in order to gain the blueprint points (BP), you need to deliver a certain shape which is then converted into points:



Once you unlock new milestones, you also unlock new shapes you can deliver to more efficiently generate the blueprint points:



Basically if you deliver the left shape, you get 1 blueprint point, whereas you get 100 if you deliver the right shape.

Copying structures or islands then cost blueprint points, and exponentially more the larger the blueprint or island is:



This allows us to make blueprints available a lot earlier, but still having interesting blueprint shapes later in the game!

Let us know what you think about this as well!

PS: There will also be a blueprint library - you can already share and load blueprint strings in the current alpha, but we want to make it easy to also create collections of blueprints, store them, share them and so on! But more on that in another devlog!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/


Have a nice remaining weekend, and I hope you enjoyed reading the devlog!

~Tobias

Hey everyone. We decided to redesign the bonus mechanics. For merging a large number of buildings and good moves you get special cards. Watch how it works.

*URBO is still in development, the appearance of the game may change
** Our Discord: https://discord.gg/3utz2pgFrN 😏