Today, solo developer Tomas Sala announced his latest project ‘ShipShaper’—with a demo now available for you to try on Steam (feedback would be appreciated!). Borne out of a little experimental work for Bulwark, ShipShaper has become its own literal shipbuilding program. As Tomas puts it:
“ShipShaper is a small, explorative shipbuilder I made for the simple pleasure of shaping boats and ships. You pull, push, and drag forms into place, creating everything from humble fishing vessels to tall ships, ironclads, and early dreadnoughts. There’s no grid, no ‘meta’, and no right answer. Just shapes, balance, and the slow satisfaction of something coming together.”
No grind, no meta. Those are strange words to my ears at the moment. But you don’t have to take my bewilderment for it as Tomas has prepped a trailer showcasing exactly what this application does. Plus, in the future, you’ll be able to take your ships out of the program for use in your own applications!
There’s no management, no combat, and no objectives, it’s just a boat designer married to experimental interfaces that are intended to take away the tedium from designing boats. No 3D skills required, no endless stacks of cubes or whatnot, just some organic shaping and attaching a host of props and functional items to create whatever ship you want.
When you’re done, you can place your ships into an Ursee Diorama and enjoy it as your creation. In the future you’ll be able to export your creations not only in to Bulwark or my future games, but as an homage to my modding roots, I am also adding a 3D export option, not just for 3D printing but also for modding and gamedev. This means you can use ShipShaper to create boats for your own games! The full game will come with an open creative license to use the ships you create in any way you want for your own game development, boardgame or modding venture.
