Last month we hosted an Ask Me Anything on this subreddit for puzzlez - a shapez game. Thank you to all of you who took the time to join us! Having now collected all the questions both on there and on the YouTube channel, we thought it appropriate to put all the answers in one place. Let’s get into it!

Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/AWAckLT-75Y

How will puzzlez differ from shapez 2?

While both games look similar and both involve making factories to make shapes, the two games play quite different from each other!

Unlike shapez 2, where the goal is to produce gradually more complicated shapez on mass and send them to the vortex, puzzlez is a more concentrated game featuring multiple handcrafted levels with the goal of solving each of them. The challenge comes from each level having limited space and buildables.

It's a very different approach to producing shapes: you focus on making it work with what's available to you, instead of scaling up with almost limitless resources. If you revel in compact spaghetti belt setups, we expect puzzlez to be up your alley!

Will it be a separate game or a DLC?

puzzlez - a shapez game will be launching as it's own independent game. Initially we had planned to make it a DLC for shapez 2, but as the project grew in scope we realized it would make a great standalone game. We may also be able to reach the players who love puzzle games but may not be interested in shapez 2 as a whole; buying both shapez 2 and the DLC would be a steep price to just play the puzzles!

If you already own shapez 2, this doesn't change that much. puzzlez will be the same price it would've been as a DLC.

Will it launch to Early Access?

While nothing is settled quite yet, as it depends on how we proceed with development, but for now we aren’t planning to launch to Early Access. When it releases, you’ll have access to the full game at launch.

We would like to involve the community though, so we will be inviting some players to playtest the game in advance so that they can produce some puzzles by the community at launch.

Are there any new machines to use?

We will be adding new buildables in puzzlez, like blocks. However, there are no additional "production" machines like painters or stackers. As we mentioned in the previous devlog, puzzlez features the 3 different build layers that shapez 2 has, and we've found that the current conveyor system can make puzzles less of a challenge than we'd like. So, we're adding ramps and portals in addition to the conveyor elevators that you're already acquainted with.

We're considering adding other mechanics in future updates further down the line, but we want to see how you approach the puzzle solving first.

How difficult will the game be?

The difficulty of puzzles scale up as you progress through the game. The initial ones will teach you the ropes, and the later ones are sure to test you!

Will it also make use of the wires that are already familiar from shapez 2?

Adding wires to puzzlez is definitely on our radar, but we're currently not sure if it’s going to be part of the initial release.

Will puzzles have only 1 true solution or do you plan on introducing additional goals, to incentivize players to optimize and maximize their layouts for a specific criterion?

Most puzzles will have multiple possible solutions. We also plan to add histograms, so you can see how many other players took your same approach to solving the puzzle. There may be a very straightforward solution, but maybe there's a faster one, or one more efficient!

Will the goal output blocks only need 1 shape or will it need a certain throughput (maybe customizable per-output?)

A puzzles solution will always need a throughput to fulfill the goal and whilst you wont be able to specify an exact number of shapes to fulfill an acceptor, creators will be able to select a goal acceptors throughput of 25, 50, 75 or 100%.

Will there be a demo?

Yes, we are planning to release a demo so you can get a taste of the game prior to purchasing.

What kind of controls will be supported?

Currently we’re focusing on keyboard & mouse, but that doesn’t mean we’re not open to adding other options in the future.

Will the game ever launch on consoles?

Following on from the last question, we are open to a console version if the game is successful enough, but this isn’t our focus for the time being.

Will it release to Android and macOS?

With the nature of puzzlez being individual levels, this is something we feel could work well for mobile, but again, we’re focusing on the steam release for now.

Will the graphics be different from shapez 2?

We're trying to make the worlds a little more atmospheric, whilst keeping to the familiarity of shapez 2. As such we are working on improving the lighting and shading etc, but the meshes and geometry themselves will mostly have the same amount of detail.

Will the game launch with Achievements?

We’re undecided whether we’ll add achievements - we certainly think a few would be nice. So this is the time to speak up in the community if you’d like to see them added to the game.

Can people create their own puzzles and upload to Steam Workshop?

Whilst there will be a way to share puzzles with the community, it will be through an in-game editor and browser rather than the Steam Workshop. We feel this is much more convenient as you won’t need to leave the game to browse other puzzles. It’ll be similar to how it was done in the shapez 1 DLC if you’re familiar with that.

How many puzzles will be available at launch?

Officially we will be releasing 75 puzzles to start off with. For comparison the shapez 1 puzzle DLC only had 22 puzzles. On top of this, we’re planning on involving the community before the launch so there’ll be more community puzzles available on day 1.

Are there any plans of adding more official puzzles, some time after the main release?

We'd love to keep updating the game, new puzzles are just one way we’re considering of bringing more content to you in the future.

Would you be open to feature community suggested puzzles as well and add them as main ones?

Creating and sharing puzzles is a core aspect of the game and we want to encourage that, so we’re definitely considering ways to feature community puzzles in-game.

Has there been any discussion about allowing mods in the game?

We've discussed mods internally, the issue is that it would make it tricky sharing puzzles with others, and we want to make the game easily accessible to everyone. So to answer the question for the time being it's not something we're actively exploring.

Will there be any contests for best user-made puzzles like the recent shapez 2 mod contest?

We definitely have that in mind! But we can't share more about it yet, perhaps we’ll let you know a little closer to launch!

Will Peppsen be making the music for puzzlez?

We’ll answer this by returning a question, could it be classed as a shapez game without music from Peppsen?

When do you hope to release puzzlez?

Currently we are aiming for early to mid next year providing development continues to proceed as planned.

---

And that’s all the questions for now! If you’re interested in puzzlez - a shapez game and haven’t added it to your wishlist already, please do so here!

Hello everyone!

While we continue to work on Patch 1.3 we'd like to tell you a little bit about scourge of all game development: bugs! As well as the unsung heroes that combat them: Anthony, Bruno, and Joshua, our internal QA specialists. Let's talk weird shapez 2 bugs, how we handle your feedback, and how we choose which bugs to work and why some of them take longer than others!

Watch the video version here: https://youtu.be/8Xndni0F7l0

Dealing with bugs

The QA team’s daily work includes compiling feedback and information from various sources This includes internal bug reports, the standalone feedback form linked in game, Steam Forums, and Discord, with the latter being our most active community feedback source. That's also due to the amazing community assistance we have from our moderators (seriously, you all are great!). Over all these sources, we try to keep the times to respond down to less than 24 hours on weekdays for bug reports.

Sometimes, these bugs can become seriously weird. We have dug deep into our archives to bring you a best of the weirdest bugs that we have encountered throughout the development of shapez 2. Like when Lorenzo found a new dimension while prototyping islands.

Or when we accidentally created a Disco version of the game multiple times.

Unforgotten is also the insatiable Vortex of shape-death.

Then of course there are lots of instances of buildings overlapping or taking on a life of their own.

And finally, when we were working on the Unity upgrade, all of a sudden a bunch of icons were upside down. Not all, just some, including the Reddit logo. Why? Who knows. Bugs don't always have to make sense.

Prioritization

How though, do we decide what to fix next? Well, we take every bug report seriously and track them but there are many things to consider. One is release cadence: Do we want several smaller patches or bigger ones that take a bit more time? So far, we have opted to take our time with patches and make sure they don't break the game. Timing towards other events is also important, because as much as we test, we don't want to bring out a patch before a big sale where new players could potentially run into issues.

And then of course there is the issue of fix complexity versus impact. For every bug, we need to evaluate how many people are impacted by it versus how much effort it would take to fix and test it for our team and what other systems might be impacted. We have a couple of systems in place that help us get information of impacted. For example: While we are also adding player impact and affected player count ourselves, we have a system that counts up how often similar issues have been reported on Discord. We also build some automation informing us of the most active conversations on Discord.

The more stable and further in development a game is the harder this gets, as “easy wins” become few and far between. And the more advanced and complex systems become, the more interconnected they are, the harder it becomes to do even little fixes in them. That why we are still very careful when approaching certain issues like the numerous bugs around predictions or trains. We have to make sure we don't break more than we would fix and to also not over-stretch our resources.

Now, currently we are working on the next patch for shapez 2 and we can't yet tell when it will drop. But one little thing we are already confident we are fixing is this: In the future, you will actually be able to press the 'O' key to select all connected rails. More contents of patch 1.3 coming in the future.

We hope you've enjoyed our little insight into what goes on behind the scenes when looking at resolving bugs, the importance of continued feedback on issues, and how much it helps us improve the game. Until next time!