When you see ShipShaper for the first time, it may be easy to think that it is nothing more than a simple boat maker. All you have to do is make a custom ship a few times, and you have explored all the game has to offer, right? That is what I thought too, until I had the chance to check out ShipShaper for myself before its release, where I quickly realized that it has so much more potential than I could have ever expected.
Essentially, ShipShaper is a mini-engine that gives players unlimited ways to build the boat they want without any limits. Building a ship is quite simple: all you need to do is click on a line on the ship’s body and adjust it like you would an image in photoshop. You can stretch it out or slim it, making your ship really long and wide, or really skinny and small. Beyond that, you can also attach objects to the top or sides of the ship, like sails or cannons. There is no restriction to the amount of objects you can place on a ship either. However impractical or practical you would like your boat to be is entirely up to you.
I was quickly blown away by just how many boat-creation options there were within the game. I fully expected there to be some kind of limit, like an in-game budget that would prevent players from mindlessly taking a bunch of random elements onto the ship, but there wasn’t one. The only practicality that you may need to consider will only come into play after you have built your ship, as you can choose to set sail with it across the sea. Here, the physics of the ship and how you constructed it will be put to the test. It reminded me a lot of Kerbal Space Program, which I think perfectly describes just how impressive this framework is.
Developer Tomas Sala demonstrated the game’s mechanics for me, and it was impossible not to see how passionate he was towards his creation. He explained that you could save your creations and even upload them online for others to see and download for themselves. The most incredible function of ShipShaper, in my opinion, is how you are given full licensing rights to whatever you create. If you want to use it in a tabletop campaign with your friends you absolutely can. Sala even explained that you could use it in a movie or game project of your own, without having to pay a single penny. It can also be uploaded as a file for 3D printing.
I deeply admire how much freedom Sala gave players in how they can build their own ships and use their creations for whatever they want. Even if you never cared about boats at all in your life, the fact that you can apply your builds to other projects of yours is truly brilliant, and a service that hundreds will likely find enjoyment with. If you simply want to build whatever you want without taking into consideration licensing, then that is an option as well. ShipShaper is a canvas that anyone can use at any time, and I cannot wait to properly dive into all of its functions for myself.
Thankfully, I don’t need to wait to do so: ShipShaper is actually available right now in Steam Early Access. It costs only $9.99, which is fantastic value considering everything it allows you to do.
