Crafting daft vessels in ShipShaper brings transient laughs, but its honest love for boat building is infectious

"I don’t think I’ve ever made a game you guys have entirely liked," solo Bulwark and The Falconeer dev Tomas Sala recently told me at a Gamescom side-event. I kind of wish he hadn’t, partly because it activated the part of my brain that fears being punched for something Sin wrote, and partly because me returning from Cologne, immediately installing the ShipShaper: Falconeer Chronicles demo, and enjoying it now looks like an untoward lapse into industry appeasement.

Nevertheless, I do, I’m afraid, like it – entirely. As a dedicated boat-building game, it’s smaller in scope than its strategy and aerial combat cousins, yet is quick to tickle your own creative bones by welding precise, Blender-style model tweaking to accessible, loosely Townscaper-esque snappiness. It also happens to be launching in early access today, with an aforementioned Steam demo that’s been updated significantly since Mark tried it earlier this year.