On April 23, the German indie studio tobspr Games officially released the sequel to shapez—a factory-building simulator for producing geometric shapes in the spirit of Factorio. Almost immediately after this, they raised funds for the development of their next game under the code name Project 3.
shapez 2
As reported by GamesWirtschaft, the studio received just under €2.3 million from the German government. This is only part of the future game's budget. It's unclear how significant a part, but typically German authorities reimburse indie teams up to half of the expenses.
Little is known about Project 3 at the moment. Tobias Springer, the founder of tobspr Games, told GamesWirtschaft that it will also be a game about a factory, but definitely "not shapez 3."
Interestingly, tobspr Games has previously secured support from the German authorities. They successfully obtained a grant of €538,000 for the development of shapez 2.
It's worth noting that shapez 2 was a success for tobspr Games. It reached full release after one and a half years of early access on Steam, during which it sold 700,000 copies and earned over $13 million, according to Gamalytic. The original shapez, by the way, sold 1.2 million copies nearly six years since its release. Both games currently have an "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating on Steam, so there are hopes that Project 3 will also live up to expectations.