[HN Gopher] Shapez.io: open-source base building game inspired b...
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Shapez.io: open-source base building game inspired by Factorio
Author : smusamashah
Score : 257 points
Date : 2020-10-04 13:01 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (shapez.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (shapez.io)
| VectorLock wrote:
| This by the same guy who made diep.io? Looks like very similar
| style.
| dengr1065 wrote:
| This game is made by Tobias Springer, author of YORG.io and
| YORG.io 3 (and other contributors).
| avree wrote:
| This website broke my browser back button. :(
| sdfjkl wrote:
| That website is very wrong. The links aren't links and right-
| clicking is disabled.
| Kaze404 wrote:
| Links are anchor tags and right clicking works for me on
| Firefox.
| dlhavema wrote:
| Add a link or something to not completely turn away mobile
| browsers. I can't play now, but would love to see what it's like
| with screenshots or something...
| laumars wrote:
| Yeah. The mobile page is rather hostile. I went to the site
| with no intention to play on the phone but just to find out
| more about it. Instead I got turned away.
| zyxzevn wrote:
| To make the upgrades and building more interesting, it would be
| more of a challenge when upgraded structures require certain
| parts. Parts that you have to build yourself.
| oh_boy wrote:
| Would be good if the website would feature a description and
| screenshots when accessing it on mobile.
| thurn wrote:
| What exactly are the limitations that prevent this game from
| working in Firefox to the point where they need a "please
| download Chrome" banner? Just curious, I thought WebAssembly and
| WebGL were pretty competitive these days.
| wtracy wrote:
| Chrome seems to have a more full-featured shim layer for
| handling older graphics drivers.
|
| I have a netbook that Firefox won't even try to launch WebGL
| on. Chrome seems to run WebGL just fine, though shaders with
| more than about twelve instructions fall off a performance
| cliff.
|
| (Add one multiplication operation over the limit, and
| performance decreases twentyfold. Keep the new line, but delete
| any other single line of code in the shader, and performance
| goes back to normal.)
| CraftThatBlock wrote:
| Not sure how true this is, since both Chrome and Firefox use
| ANGLE as their default WebGL backend (at least on Windows).
|
| https://github.com/google/angle
| Uehreka wrote:
| That's bananas. I write a lot of complex WebGL shaders, I had
| never heard that some devices have such a clear (and early)
| performance cliff.
| Jasper_ wrote:
| I imagine it's doing the SwiftShader fallback, and the JIT
| tends to have a few specializations for "quick" shaders.
| Would be curious what's going on, though.
| Kiro wrote:
| So what is the issue in this game? I presume the banner is
| there for a reason. I see a lot of complaints about it and
| if it really was something easily fixed someone should make
| a PR.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| FWIW I can't for the life of me get WebGL to work on Firefox
| anywhere near as good as it works on Chrome. GTS 1050 on
| Ubuntu.
| Kiro wrote:
| This is one issue making my WebGL app unusable in Firefox:
| https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=925025
| Kiro wrote:
| It could also be more indirect issues not necessary related to
| performance or rendering. Here are a couple commits for fixed
| issues in Firefox:
|
| https://github.com/tobspr/shapez.io/commit/d2903f5606d285678...
|
| https://github.com/tobspr/shapez.io/commit/bf8b3253b97fb5d10...
| dom96 wrote:
| This game appears to be written in JS. I've been working on a
| browser game recently myself and there is definitely some
| bottlenecks when it comes JS execution in Firefox, especially
| on Linux.
| Kiro wrote:
| Not sure why you're getting downvoted since it's completely
| true. Making a cross-browser game is hard.
|
| For regular apps it hardly matters but when you need to run
| complicated logic 60 times a second differences between
| browsers and even nuances in implementations between
| platforms (Windows vs Mac, desktop vs mobile) start to
| matter. And then we have all the rendering and sound caveats.
| Krasnol wrote:
| GTX 660 on Win10 here while running Elite Dangerous parallel to
| it: no issues at all.
| vbernat wrote:
| I am also wondering. On my Firefox, it seems to run smoothly.
| dengr1065 wrote:
| I completely agree - 99% of the time, I play (and test) the
| game on Firefox. It looks like it runs there even better than
| on Chromium. I've tried to tell the main developer that it
| 100% works, but the badge is still there; you can ignore it.
| Kiro wrote:
| What device are you on? I have an issue which only happens
| on Firefox on Mac where WebRender is disabled by default,
| causing massive drops in FPS. I think it works fine on
| Windows though.
| ezconnect wrote:
| Factorio seems like a nice UI to program FPGAs
| narrationbox wrote:
| Maybe for CPLDs, the abstraction level of Factorio is a bit too
| low for FPGAs unless you want to work entirely at the
| transistor level.
| chrisdalke wrote:
| Really smooth gameplay, nice art style, satisfying sound effects
| -- Nice work!
| aurbano wrote:
| Bought the full version and played it for a good few hours -
| lovely game!
|
| After a while it did feel slightly too similar to work though
| (programming), as once you unlock copy pasting of structures it's
| really all about optimising. Still some good fun, and definitely
| worth the price :)
| [deleted]
| simias wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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.)
| mdaniel wrote:
| $ git clone https://github.com/tobspr/shapez.io.git
| Receiving objects: 100% (16655/16655), 534.19 MiB | 2.09 MiB/s,
| done.
|
| wowzers, 535MB for an in-browser game? But it seems it's the
| res_raw, and the sounds subdir specifically, that's the source of
| pain: 168K res_raw/sounds/sfx/dialog_ok.wav
| 236K res_raw/sounds/sfx/place_building.wav 280K
| res_raw/sprites/belt/built 352K
| res_raw/sounds/sfx/destroy_building.wav 728K
| res_raw/sounds/sfx/badge_notification.wav 1.2M
| res_raw/sounds/sfx/level_complete.wav 17M
| res_raw/sounds/music/menu.wav 44M
| res_raw/sounds/music/theme-short.mp3 80M
| res_raw/sounds/music/theme-full.mp3
|
| With a 535MB clone size, how many times have those files
| changed?! It seems LFS was jettisoned with the explanation "Get
| rid of lfs files"
| https://github.com/tobspr/shapez.io/commit/f12cae7bd3fc3b51f...
| so there goes my suggestio for how to keep game binaries outside
| of the clone pain
| hughes wrote:
| What do you suggest here? Git surgery to rebase through all
| 1700 commits looking for large files, or blowing away the repo
| and starting from scratch? Neither seems particularly appealing
| for the benefit of saving a few hundred megabytes of
| developers' disk space.
| paulgb wrote:
| For a game that's open source and written in JavaScript, it's a
| shame that the packaged, downloadable version is only available
| through Steam on Windows. I'd pay the $5 for a DRM-free Mac
| version.
| MrGilbert wrote:
| You can get a DRM-free version from itch.io [1]. There is also
| a statement regarding MacOS, which reads:
|
| > Mac users: I currently don't do builds for your OS since it
| got much harder with the recent policy changes from apple. Feel
| free to make a PR!
|
| [1]: https://tobspr.itch.io/shapezio
| opencl wrote:
| It's also available for Linux. If the developer doesn't already
| own a Mac and have a paid Apple developer account they are
| probably not going to make back their money buying those things
| in order to make a Mac build.
| paulgb wrote:
| That's a very fair point! I didn't realize there was a Linux
| option.
|
| In that case, I'd also pay to be able to unlock all of the
| features on the web version.
| SXX wrote:
| Developer can certainly make build using Travis CI if someone
| decide to test it and contribute build configuration. It's
| open source after all.
| mdaniel wrote:
| The latest (as of this comment) change to package.json was
| a PR to turn on macOS builds:
| https://github.com/tobspr/shapez.io/pull/687 but unknown if
| the reservation was more political than technical
| HenryBemis wrote:
| There are a few sites that show step by step how you can run
| Mac on a VMWare on a PC. Yes it disregards some T&Cs but the
| dev will avoid the $1000 apple-tax.
| jasonjayr wrote:
| Mindustry is another great open source game with factory-building
| mechanics to get upgrades.
| bryan0 wrote:
| One great thing about mindustry is you can play on mobile.
| Shapez says "mobile coming soon" and Factorio would be just
| about impossible to play mobile
| brylie wrote:
| https://mindustrygame.github.io/
| umvi wrote:
| I love when a game unlocks a new genre that further refines and
| perfects the formula... Dark Souls, Factorio, etc.
| TheTacoMerchant wrote:
| Well, to be technical, it says in the Factorio about page that
| it's heavily inspired by a Minecraft mod called Buildcraft, so
| you could trace the genre back to there.
| ejj28 wrote:
| That's super cool, I never knew this but I always thought
| that it was very similar to Buildcraft.
| slim wrote:
| minecraft was inspired by infiniminer
|
| https://notch.tumblr.com/post/227922045/the-origins-of-
| minec...
| Kiro wrote:
| Buildcraft is a Minecraft mod that is completely different
| from the vanilla game. Saying Factorio can be traced back
| to Infiniminer is a stretch.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| "I'm sorry but this game is not available on mobile devices"
|
| What a short sighted approach to making a website. Just because I
| am on a phone I don't get to even read about the game on the
| site? Fuck me for using a mobile device I guess.
| Kiro wrote:
| There is no website. What you see is a warning in the game. If
| someone is up to the task there's room to render more
| information for mobile users here:
| https://github.com/tobspr/shapez.io/blob/5a3807883e44640bb8a...
| raldi wrote:
| Not even a screenshot for visitors on mobile.
| jiriro wrote:
| Exactly. The impression was .. What a complete crap?!
| jiriro wrote:
| To clarify. The game looks terrific!
|
| The "what a complete crap" belongs _only_ to the shapez.io
| (mobile) home page. I just can't believe that it was designed
| _this_ way.
| Kiro wrote:
| I presume no-one has gotten around to fix it yet. Maybe
| they didn't have any screenshot that was a good
| representation when they put up the mobile warning. It's
| not going to happen magically by itself so feel free to
| send a PR: https://github.com/tobspr/shapez.io/blob/5a38078
| 83e44640bb8a...
|
| My point is that this is an open source effort. It's not
| like someone intentionally omitted a screenshot to annoy
| people. It needs a contributor who cares about changing the
| mobile prompt for it to be fixed.
|
| I have a similar useless prompt in one of my open source
| games and it's just a boring issue to fix and I rather
| focus on the game itself.
| Kiro wrote:
| It's a game, open source and free. This is not some SaaS
| trying to maximize conversions.
| laumars wrote:
| Doesn't mean the mobile page couldn't be improved upon.
| Kiro wrote:
| No, but it doesn't warrant a "What a complete crap?!".
| laumars wrote:
| True true
| thomasikzelf wrote:
| Great game. In about 4 days the wire update will be released,
| which includes logic gates into the game:
| https://shapez.io/wires/
| Donckele wrote:
| Does anyone know why ffmpeg is a dependency?
| thih9 wrote:
| Offtopic, I've opened the game on my macbook pro 15" 2018, the
| one with touchbar. I picked the web version and opened it in
| chromium. After about 10 minutes the laptop got unbearably hot
| and the fans were audible. This is a popular problem so I wanted
| to gather more data, are others experiencing thermal issues now
| as well?
| shapeofmyheart wrote:
| Fun for a while, but quickly devolves into make work.
| Arkdy wrote:
| I gave up on Factorio when I realized that if I was gonna think
| that way, I might as well just write some code and make something
| tangible.
|
| But if it's just shapes, and I don't have to memorize as many new
| concepts, maybe the load will be light enough to be relaxing like
| _Mini Metro_.
| afterburner wrote:
| Also, Factorio looks ugly as sin.
| dexwiz wrote:
| I have put about 100 hours into the game and hitting about that
| same wall. But I am now learning sequential circuits, because
| my familiar algorithms and constructs don't map well to the
| signal system in the game. So even though it's programming,
| it's a different kind.
|
| The refactoring thing is up to you, it's pretty easy to give up
| on a base and build one next door. Space is pretty much
| infinite.
|
| Stretching your brain in similar but new ways in not always a
| waste.
| adkadskhj wrote:
| I found it hilarious how much Factorio and Satisfactory tired
| me out in the same way that programming does.
|
| I love them, but the difficulty curve that they give the player
| just strikes too many similarities with my day job. I feel like
| i want to play a Satisfactory-lite. Something that gives me the
| fun of programming without the complexity. Help me build an
| abomination of complexity that i don't have to maintain.
| Refactoring shouldn't exist in this hypothetical game,
| maintenance should never be a concern - just forward movement
| and the joy of unburdened chaos.
| Dauros wrote:
| > Refactoring shouldn't exist in this hypothetical game
|
| Without refactoring the factory planning phase would be more
| difficult since I don't want to fill the best places on the
| map with unmaintainable, non scalable factories. Refactoring
| should be very easy, e.g. like in Factorio with construction
| bots: just press ctrl + x and the bad part of the factory is
| gone.
|
| If you want to build an abomination, try SeaBlock mod [1] for
| Factorio. You don't have to refactor anything, space and
| resources are infinite, so just build a new factory next to
| the old one after you research a new tier of technology.
|
| [1]: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/SeaBlock
| scotty79 wrote:
| I used Factorio to train myself to overcome psychological
| barriers to progressing my projects. It's easier to do it in
| Factorio because Factorio is more engaging and problems with
| overwhelming chaos and complexity and legacy barriers to
| progress and the needs for refactoring are the same.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| I've heard Inifnifactory is like Factorio lite
|
| You know what's funny? I'm a programmer and I think the same
| of XCOM 2. It's a game where everything's always on fire,
| everything always goes wrong for you to fix, and there's
| never enough time to sit back and relax. It was a game about
| grit and perserverance against overwhelming odds... and it
| felt exactly like my most previous job as as a Senior SE at a
| small startup.
|
| No fucking thank you.
| theptip wrote:
| Have you tried any of the Zachtronics games? Magnum Opus,
| Spacechem, etc?
|
| Still scratches the "programming puzzle" itch for me, still
| complex in the later stages, but more bite sized problems so
| no refactoring/maintenance to speak of (unless you want to
| try reimplementing to beat your previous score).
| mdaniel wrote:
| I believe it was spacechem that made me long for testable
| components in the game, since the stage was conceptually
| getting several submodules to work, and then orchestrating
| their outputs into the final product
|
| When I started longing for unit testing in a game, that was
| the end for me
| tomc1985 wrote:
| It broke the back button and insulted my browser....
| MauranKilom wrote:
| Small feedback:
|
| I did not initially realize that the upgrades are different from
| the "main quest" and was wondering why all my upgrades required
| parts that I could not produce. Not sure if it could be clearer
| than having the thing I was missing smack-dab in the middle of
| the screen, but just sharing some experience.
| simias wrote:
| There's some overlap between the upgrade and the "main quest"
| shapes (often main quest shapes enter upgrade recipes, as not
| to be immediately useless as the objective is reached). The
| current objective is always displayed on the left of the screen
| (and you can pin additional recipes there if you want).
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(page generated 2020-10-04 23:00 UTC)