This beautifully colorful new factory building game just released with mod support to 'overwhelmingly positive' reviews

It wouldn't be a weekend news round without a new(ish) strategy or building game now, would it? Seriously, whenever I'm drafted in to see what's worth bringing to your attention at the end of a long week, there's always some critically acclaimed simulator I've never heard of hitting an apparently long overdue 1.0 release to stellar reviews. Shapez 2 - Factory is the name of this weekend's surprise strategy release, and I'm convinced people secretly yearn for the manufacturing line.

After around 18 months in early access, Shapez 2 is ready for the big time. And with a whopping 94% of its recent reviews being positive, it seems to be going well. One review, posted specifically as a way to ask the developers why the latest release suddenly won't work on MacOS, is positive, too. Turns out the game must work on MacOS, because that's how it's being made and maintained. See? Sometimes the problem really can just be your machine.

The sequel to a mid-Covid release that looks like it was made on graph paper and ported to the Atari 2600, Shapez 2 is quite the evolution. A mesmerizing 3D shift that really must feel like quite the generational leap for tobspr Games.

My Steam library is so factory game-averse right now that the closest available comparison when it comes to production-based supply and demand games -according to Steam, I might add - is Schedule 1.

Still, it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together. This is a nod to Satisfactory. Factorio. A "factory game with no purpose," according to one glowing Steam review. Yes, these games really don't need an aim. Playing preset Rollercoaster Tycoon scenarios was fun, sure, but sandbox mode was always the grab, right? Same here. Or so I'm told. If it was good enough to sell 150,000 copies in its first three days in early access, it's probably pretty good now. And with mod support added as part of this 1.0 release, you can bet some of the best Satisfactory mods will show up here in due course.

Anyway, that same player makes an interesting case for how Shapez 2 is managing to stand out within the rather ironically saturated factory game genre. Commending the controls as the reason why this one stuck with them when Satisfactory wouldn't, Steam user Ellye says that Shapez 2 feels like "very competent software" rather than a game. Common keyboard commands (CRTL-V/C/S/X) are the… key. Intuitive, basically. That's assuming you've ever had to spend enough time working on spreadsheets and the like to bother looking them up. Oh, and that means you can delete the whole thing with a drag and a tap of the delete key. It's not that easy on Satisfactory or Factorio? Really?

If you want to engineer abstract ways to have loads of nondescript things endlessly flow into a vortex, Shapez 2 - Factory is available for $23.99. It's 20% off on Steam during the launch period, so you have until May 7 to grab it before it bumps up to $29.99 / £24.99.  I'm closing Steam now. I could lose far too much time to something like this. Back to Runescape I go.