A Twin-Stick Run Built Around Your Ship
Shape Shifter: Formations is a top-down action shooter where you clear waves of geometric enemies and then face bullet-hell bosses. Before a run starts, you pick one of 20 ships and one of 20 weapons. Each ship brings its own active and passive abilities, such as tesla towers, a burning laser, clones that mirror your attacks, or slowing time around you. Ships and weapons each have their own skill tree, and together they cover 800 skills, so the same ship can play very differently depending on how you build it.
Playing Together
The game runs as a twin-stick shooter: one stick moves, the other aims and fires. There is an optional auto-aim mode if you would rather not manage aiming yourself. A standard run lasts about 30 minutes, and there is an optional endless mode for groups that want to keep going. You can play solo or in 2 player local co-op, and Remote Play Together is supported, so a friend can join over a connection instead of sharing a keyboard or controllers in the same room.
Building and Difficulty
Killing enemies gives experience, which feeds into more than 200 infinitely stacking upgrades. Status effects, summoned constructs with their own weaponry, and other stacking effects let each run diverge from the last. Between runs, meta-progression carries over: permanent upgrades, new mechanics, and unlocks of new ships, weapons, and upgrades. You can also set your own difficulty with modifiers that change the arena, such as electrifying walls or giving enemies elemental infusions, and higher difficulties can unlock prime boss variants with greater challenges and further rewards. Challenges unlock new upgrades, weapons, and ships along the way.