Indie publisher Wired Productions and solo developer Tomas Sala have launched ShipShaper into Steam Early Access.
The creative shipbuilding sandbox invites players to build, shape and sail extraordinary vessels across the waters of the Great Ursee.
The launch celebrates the next chapter in Wired Productions and Tomas Sala’s long-standing partnership, following the The Falconeer and Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles, with the pair recently signing a new seven-year publishing agreement. The deal gives Tomas the freedom to keep exploring the Falconeer universe, alongside whatever weird, wonderful and unexpected ideas come next. Wired will be right there with him for the journey.
Here’s what they had to say about the game:
ShipShaper is built around one simple idea: designing ships should feel good. At the helm, Tomas Sala is doing what he does best: taking a deeply personal creative obsession and turning it into an invitation for everyone else to create something of their own.
There is no combat, management or prescribed way to build. No intimidating 3D tools, rigid grids or correct answers. Players simply pull, push, bend and shape forms into fishing vessels, tall ships, ironclads, submarines or glorious nautical creations no sensible shipyard would ever approve.
Once a vessel is ready to leave the shipyard, players can admire it bobbing on the horizon, place it inside a bottle or handcrafted diorama, export it into Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles or take the complete 3D model into another creative project. Models can also be exported and prepared for 3D printing using external software, depending on the design and printing method.
ShipShaper’s free commercial licence allows developers, modders, makers and other creators to use their designs in personal and commercial projects. Models are already appearing in small independent games.
Early Access features include:
- Free-form building
- Sailing!
- Responsive shaping
- Expanding library of details and props, for example historical guns
- Steam Workshop integration
- Export FBX 3d files with a license to use how you see fit
- Export to Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles
Tomas Sala, creator of ShipShaper, said:
“Sometimes we all imagine our own Fortress with our mind’s eye, I made a game for that already. I thought it was time we had a tool to imagine a Flagship to go with that. I’ve been moving closer and closer to trying to reproduce the things I enjoy, that give me that natural high of creativity, making 3D ships is something that brings a lot of that together. Deconstructing my own process and tools and distilling them into something that’s enjoyable in an explorative and creative way, but with sails and naval artillery tacked on.”
ShipShaper is out now in Early Access on Steam.
