#shapehero factory

[syrupspinner]

nextfest part 2!

i said out loud "oh thats adorable" when i saw that you get circles from an apple and triangles from a teapot. so, the first thing i wanna compare this to is Mindustry, since its a resource miner and tower defence game. notably, it's a radial defence. yknow how sometimes rhythm games, instead of having a straight note highway, have the notes approach the centre from all sides of the screen (look up the persona dancing games if you dont know what i mean). well this is like that! you send units to a book, and they travel out from the centre to defend it from the monsters approaching from the edge of the screen. this is already so fun! i can already appreciate that this emphasizes a really unique and interesting approach compared to other defence games ive played. wishlisted before i finished the first tutorial

this is a game i found on twitter at first, so im excited to give it a real go! im in that weird level where, as a peripheral nintendo fan, im aware of the reverence for f-zero, but ive never actually played any of the games, so i had no idea what i was getting into. after playing it, gotta say, hell yeah this feels awesome. i dig the visuals, the music's pretty fitting for the action, and the controls are SO slippery in a good way. its so ridiculously responsive, at first i felt the need to reach for the drift button on sharp turns but that instinct melted when i got acclimated by like, map 2. pumped for the full game

woof, 13gb for a demo? thats a lot around these parts. but hey, the game itself is pretty alright! the controls feel awesome, especially the dash. the high-jump is a little counterintuitive at first, but its east to get the feel for through the tutorial. speaking of, it is so long... i get that this is a complicated game, but its hard for me to internalize so much all at once. i hope that it was just for the sake of the demo, and the full game has more of an integrated way of teaching the player. i really like how if you miss an item, youre given the option of paying for it, or summoning the monster it spawns from for free, fun little player choice. also, minor nitpick, but the hitbox for the coins feel a bit small, i had do do a lot of what i call the "oops loop" when i missed one. i dont wanna hold this against the game, because this might be on me, but i had no idea what to do in the cactus level. i got the frisbee thing, but there wasnt anything for me to climb to with it, because i dont think there was anything above the door, and it wouldnt stick to the cactus wall. im not really feeling this one, but ill keep my eye out when it releases just in case it turns out better than i expect

this one caught my eye in the store for the aesthetic alone, and anyone who knows be gets why. i always dig this y2k-futuristic colourful vector stuff. in the game itself, yeah, i really dig this art direction. im a little dissapointed the evil-looking edera is such a pushover to the boss, i presume all the models have the same personality? anyway, gameplay: imagine bomberman 64 meets hyper light drifter. the only thing is, your character feels weirdly heavy. dashing somehow feels too slow and too fast at the same time, and it feels like youre trying to throw a couch full of helium every time you jump. the bomb mechanic itself is fine though! this seems like a solid but flawed game. ill give the full release an honest try if it releases for cheap, but i dont blame you if youre not feeling as generous

oh this is gonna be WEIRD weird, thank god

right away, i had to do controller calibration with my keyboard before it let me calibrate my controller. okay? anyway, the game kicks ass. i love how the drift feels, i can tell it took a lot of work to get it to feel like it does. its hard to explain, but it feels like it has ending lag? like, it takes you a while to STOP drifting, so you cant just do it for ever turn, youve gotta commit to it. the action is super tense to! the game expects you to play well or else you dont win, and i appreciate a game that knows its difficulty. if you die, you respawn almost immediately, and the almost is all you need. the art style is cute too, everything looks toyish, and it helps the game feel less serious in a "lets all have fun" kinda way without detracting from the action. wishlisted!

yeah i played more demonschool, i know nextfest isnt a competition but demonschool would win. its criminal that when you dont sort by "most wishlisted" that the first few pages arent exclusively demonschool

woah, achievements? i saw someone on twitter (@casitamono hes also a dev so you should check out Street Shuffle and Project B-fer) literally comand me to play this and im nothing if not compliant. and yeah, right away, THIS is how you have a style that is also substance. NBB was carried by its style, of the devil is carrying its style. the writing is fantastic, the characters are the perfect blend of unique and realistic, and the worldbuilding is cyberpunk that is poiniant and directed without going off the deep end. the gameplay is such a fun approach to detective work, i have no idea how they made gambling work without feeling luck-based. i am SO ready for more of this! definitely the best demo i played tonight (new games, i mean, i dont know who would win in a fight between this and demonschool but i think im leaning in morgans favour). its so long too?? i was not expecting this to be two and a half hours of quality substance. PLEASE play this game

join me next time when i finish my queue of demos! for real this time!

[zwei-association-official]

Update

// OP here. sorry for the sudden absence. Two things happened.

// Firstly. Steam Next Fest and TimeKilling Time happened which ate up most of my time (Some stand outs for me were Pillory, ShapeHero Factory, and TinyGlade) (〜￣▽￣)〜

// Secondly, after the initial excitement wore off I wanted to spend a bit of time figuring out where I wanted to go with this blog. Namely I wanted to try out a few things.

I wanted to create a list of all the characters, both canon and OC's, just to kinda flesh out the association more and hopefully give people some idea's on questions and whatnot. You should be seeing that sometime later today.

I wanted to start interacting with the community a bit more. There's already a lot more ask blogs since I started last week which warms my heart. I already sent a few of them some asks so go give them a look if you wanna see

I wanted to try something a bit more unique. Not to spoil anything but it will be something interactive and story focused. Truth be told I'm actually a bit of writer myself so I'm anxious to see how it'll go.

// With that all said. Again, sorry for the sudden absence and I look forward to interacting with you all more in the future. （＾▽＾）

[indiegamelover]

ShapeHero Factory

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[takeuchi839-game-play-log]

ShapeHero Factory (Steam)

好きそうな組み合わせだな～と思ったので購入。

予想以上にハマってしまった。久々に休日このために早起きしたり、空き時間にノートに設計図を描いたりした。

楽しいのは作ったラインが計算通りに流れているのを眺めるところ。その設計のために生産量や流量、強化できる要素を色々試しながら調べるのも楽しかった。

タワーディフェンス的な部分はそんなに…だったけど、それがあるお陰でゲームプレイにテンポが生まれていて良かった。まあテンポといっても時間停止モードで遊んだので、時間的なテンポというよりはマナを使い切る⇒またマナを得てラインを広げる、のリソースが増減する反復をテンポと感じている…気がする。

一番良かったのは、TDモード中のジャンジャンバリバリ感かも。Vampire Survivorsの終盤に訪れる、見てるだけで良い時間、何が起きてるかもう正確に把握できなくなる、たぶん勝てるけど大丈夫かな…でも見てることしかできないけど…みたいな弛緩した緊張感（？）の気持ち良さがある。それがVSよりも短いスパンで来るところにこのゲームならではの価値がある…気がする。最近のTDやってないから一般的にこんなもんなのかもしれないけど。。

余談。Mindustryもこれと近い感覚があったけど、これの方がよりハマった。これはラインが破壊されないのが良かったのかもしれないな。だとすると、上下にマップを分けたのが偉いのかも。

終盤はヒーローのレシピを埋めたり実際に作ってみて強さを確かめたりする作業になっていた。���うゲーム感と作業感が半々。これがそんなに楽しいとかではないけど、ゲームを起動するきっかけとしてちょうど良かった気がする。まあ実績みたいなもんなんだけど。もっとこのゲームを楽しみたい・プレイしたい（ラインを組みたい）みたいな気持ちが先にあって、それに対して図鑑埋めが適当な目標になっていたというか。その意味だと図鑑があったのは良かったな。

研究ツリーも途中まではそれ（埋めたい欲のトリガ）だった気がするけど、明らかに使いやすいもの（ワープとか）と効率が悪いもの（リサイクル）の差が激しすぎたのが気になった。そのせいで、これはランダムじゃなくても良くないか？という気もした。

あとなんか…UI的に３つや４つの中からピックするシーンがゲーム中に多く出現するので、それに慣れたあとに新しいゲームを始めると、同じUIで選択の余地なく押し付けられる最初の研究を理不尽に感じた。具体的に言うとリサイクルがハズレすぎて引いたら即リセットしてた。これけっこうなストレスなので、ピックさせる（OK を押させる）のであれば、２つ以上の選択肢を作るべきだと思った。

それを言ったらヒーローのレシピもランダムじゃなくて良い気がするけど、どうなんだろう…？ヒーローは派生関係があるからある程度プレイヤーが方向性を決められたし、自由過ぎると選択肢が多くて迷うのでこれでちょうど良かった…のか？

マップが一気に広がりすぎるのは何でなん？という気がしたな。もうちょっと小出しに出来ればリソースの渇望感が出た…気がする。このへんもカオスシードは上手くて…（以下略）

[atomic188]

ShapeHero Factory - Gameplay