It's been just over a month since the demo, so where are we? When will it launch? What's missing?
I actually do these questions every day. I want to be in that release day as much as everybody, so why the game is not out yet? The short answer is, some features are still missing, or they were missing. We could playtest with a couple of bugs and fix them on the run, but some features needed to be defined or redefined, with future maintenance and updates in mind that don't totally break the experience, and honestly, for the first time in months, I think I am reaching this goal.
Block Block Block right now is in a polishing/refining state, focusing on all the feedback from the playtest/demo to give the best and most relaxing experience possible, and of course there is a constant addition of items. So, let's check some of the new boring integrations and changes around that are preventing you from playing right now:
Groups
The biggest addition, the one that could break anything, and it did.
How does it work? Select an item, press Group, tap over items you want to include and Confim, that's it, you created a group that works exactly like any other item. You can grab it, rotate it, scale it, or even duplicate it, and you can just ungroup it whenever you want.
Big missing? Not totally working with Undo/Redo but is almost there.
Placement Assist
Smarter grab, basically. The current grab lets you place everything everywhere, but some players found frustrating the way items also rotate when you move something from the floor to a wall, especially coming from other builder and decoration experiences.
The new grabbing does a lot more for you, preventing items from going through walls when possible and rotating them when moving between floor, wall, or even roof.
The old system is still around in case you need that extra control in your hands by holding Control while grabbing the item. But also it is going to be possible to invert this shortcut to make the old system default and more like the Demo experience in case that is more your style.
Roll
Previous Roll was extra confusing. You could hold Control to roll in one direction, but then you also had to hold Alt to make the item spin on itself with a circle that looked too close to the main rotation one, and a lot of players wondered if there was a difference just by looking at it.
With the new version, Roll works the same in 2 different directions, something that was kind of available before, but depending of the item one roll forward and other items roll to a side direction, now they are both going to be available at the same time when you hold Control.
At the moment both UI rings are separate, but they are going to be in the same place for the final version
Materials
For you to bring that 2000s looking transparent tech, now you have available new options like glass to replace any wood looking parts, and also there is a new sketch looking material.
Lock and interactions
It is now easier to interact with items if they are locked.
Help Text Removed
If you played the demo, you probably remember the little text with advice in the lower left corner of the screen. It was hard to read in some cases, some players did not even know it was there, so I totally removed it, and I am replacing it with the Icons + Shortcuts version for the main instructions players could need.
Localization
The system is there, working with Spanish, and just needs more languages to put together now.
Puzzles
The newest addition, and I am not going to give too many details of the progress since I am working on a better introduction on this. But, I can tell you this small and simple experience is created for players looking for a more guided experience when creating little dioramas without having to come up with new ideas every time they open the game.
Writing this made me realize there has been a lot of progress I was not aware of.
I'm still looking to release in the next months, starting with a new playtest as soon as possible.
What do you think of this progress? Does it cover some issue you experienced before? What do you consider is still missing around, and what else would you like to see in the release?
Once again I would like to thank everyone who has been following, playing, and helping to improve this little game over the last few months. It has been a great adventure to watch it grow little by little, and it is a little terrifying and exciting to know that its final version is close. ❤️
I hope you've enjoyed this little progress toward the release. If you're excited about Block Block Block, don’t forget to share it around, and also:
👉 Join the community on Discord
Thanks for following along!
— Aender Lara