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Block Block Block News

Devlog - The Old, the New and the Blocks

[p]It's been just over a month since the demo, so where are we? When will it launch? What's missing?[/p][p]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.[/p][p]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:[/p][p]Groups[/p][p]The biggest addition, the one that could break anything, and it did.[/p][p]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.[/p][p]Big missing? Not totally working with Undo/Redo but is almost there.[/p][p][/p][p]Placement Assist[/p][p]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. [/p][p][/p][p]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.[/p][p]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.[/p][p]Roll[/p][p]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.[/p][p]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.[/p][p][/p][p]At the moment both UI rings are separate, but they are going to be in the same place for the final version[/p][p]Materials[/p][p]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.[/p][p][/p][p]Lock and interactions[/p][p]It is now easier to interact with items if they are locked.[/p][p][/p][p]Help Text Removed[/p][p]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.[/p][p][/p][p]Localization[/p][p] The system is there, working with Spanish, and just needs more languages to put together now.[/p][p][/p][p]Puzzles[/p][p]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.[/p][p]Writing this made me realize there has been a lot of progress I was not aware of.[/p][p]I'm still looking to release in the next months, starting with a new playtest as soon as possible.[/p][p]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?[/p][p]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. ❤️[/p][p]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:[/p][p]👉 Wishlist the game on Steam[/p][p]👉 Join the community on Discord[/p][p]Thanks for following along![/p][p]— Aender Lara[/p]

What is Next after the Demo

[p]Hello again, Demo is coming to an end tomorrow Monday and I want to talk a little about what is next moving forward to a release of the 1.0 version.[/p][p]It has been 2 crazy months since the playtest release and I can say the game is not the same as it was before the playtest, there have been a lot of bug fixes and also a lot of the experience improvement, and is also thanks to you.[/p][p]The game has the main tools already in place, but there are still things that need improvements and some extra additions. We also have to improve one of the weakest points of the experience and that is communicate better to the players the tools available. Some of you are amazingly good, but some players get frustrated about things they can't do that are actually part of the current game experience and we need to show that better.[/p][p]Here are some of the points ahead of the launch that are on the priority list:[/p][p]Group Items[/p][p]One of the most asked features and probably the biggest, group items could not just open the door to merge items into a big one, but also could work to create your own custom items for you to add in the catalog.[/p][p]More game less building(kind of experience)[/p][p]Some players are looking for a more guided experience to put together little diroramas.[/p][p]Light and Studio[/p][p]Merging these two sections from the Scene to work lights directly in the Studio mode.[/p][p]Snap or grid while moving an item[/p][p]One of the big missing features.[/p][p]Solid Color Background [/p][p]Change the current workshop background to a solid color of your preference[/p][p]Items[/p][p]A lot more variety of items available for you to put your scene together.[/p][p]3D Export(Tentative)[/p][p]We all want this one, but it is something I have not fully explored yet and prefer not to promise it for the launch at the moment.[/p][p]Gamepad Support[/p][p]Yes, why not.[/p][p]Roll/Spin improvement[/p][p]There is an idea to make it even more simple.[/p][p]Localization[/p][p]Even when the game has not that many text around this feature still kind of expensive for us at the moment, but the system is going to be in place and our goal is to include English and Spanish in the release.[/p][p]Other Systems[/p][p]We are aiming to release it on Windows, and there's a possibility that we might also release it on Linux(We already develop the game in Linux too). Mac is still a possibility but we need to test before confirming we can release it there.[/p][p]Release Date[/p][p]Hopefully, the first half of 2026[/p][p][/p][p]I would like to use this space to answer questions and especially to read what you would like to see in the future release of the game.[/p][p]Once again I would like to thank everyone who has been 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.❤️[/p][p][/p][p]Thanks so much for playing and until next time![/p][p]— Aender Lara[/p][p]
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Demo 1.4: Lock items

[p]Hi everyone, this post is to announce that this will possibly be our last feature update before disabling the demo for now.[/p][p]The demo will be available until Monday, November 10th, and I hope to share a new post this week to talk about what's next, what's missing, and have a discussion to read some of your suggestions. But in short, it's time to focus on the final version of the game for its release.[/p][p]But for now, I want to share a new feature that allow you to Lock Items:[/p][p]• Lock/Unlock items by dragging and dropping the Lock icon over the item, this prevents the item to be selected.[/p][p][/p][p]• Deselect items by pressing Enter in the keyboard or the right mouse click.[/p][p]In case you miss it, there is also other small updates that happen during the last weeks:[/p][p]• Items now stop floating when they are to close to others, useful for when you are trying to match some items sizes and they are next to each other, you can also disable the floating animation in the game settings. [/p][p][/p][p]• Scene tools now shows the shortcuts when you hover the buttons if there is one.[/p][p]• Undo/Redo shortcut changed to Z and X.[/p][p]Once again, hope you are having a great time, is been a wonderful and scary months since the playtest to the Demo release, seeing all of you play for the first time and creating stuff I did not even knew was possible has been exciting. And thanks to all of you dear players I can say this is not the same game it was before the playtest, it has been evolving and fixed to the experience that is today, but there is still a long way to go.❤️[/p][p]Thanks so much for playing and until next time![/p][p]— Aender Lara[/p]

Demo 1.3: Rooms Template Item

[p]Hi everyone, Steam Next Fest is almost over, but Demo is going to be around at least until after Halloween, probably with some extension? We'll see.[/p][p]But for today with a small update with a couple of additions, take a look:[/p][p]• 2 new items that resemble rooms for your ideas have been added to help you. What room shapes do you think we should add in the future?[/p][p][/p][p]• New scene come with predefined little room now, to prevent new scene to just been empty, specially for new users with no experience, later options to decide if you start with empty scene is going to be added.[/p][p][/p][p]• 2 new cone shapes are now part of the blocks[/p][p][/p][p]• Number of items per scene limit has been increased to 1000[/p][p]• Number of scenes you can create in game has been increased to 16[/p][p]Hope you are having a great time, and let us know what you think would be cool to have around for the Demo, could be some small feature or items. We will see what we can do about it 😉[/p][p]We also want to invite you to let a review for the Demo on Steam, this could really do wonders for us.❤️[/p][p]Thanks so much for playing and until next time![/p][p]— Aender Lara[/p]

Demo 1.2: Scale Snap & Color Transfer

[p]Hi everyone, Steam Next Fest is tomorrow and that don't prevent our second update to be here.[/p][p]A couple of bugs have been fixed again, and we probably introduced a couple more (who knows), apart from that there is a couple of feature you probably want to take a look:[/p][p]• Now you can drag and drop the item paint small circle preview to another item to apply that color easily[/p][p][/p][p]• Snapping is now possible when changing items shapes or scaling it when the mouse is closer to the guide line, you would see some new lines appearing to show you are snapping, useful for ideas that needs that extra precision[/p][p][/p][p]• Multiple UI improvements for resolution bigger or lower than 1080p included, no more big brand logo in the start screen for 4k users[/p][p]• There is a lot of improvements for the editing shape and how it works, if you notice before some was not working right with it especially for rolled items is probably better now[/p][p]• Items now has a couple of new options settings that allow you to turn On/Off the floating animation and jumping animation[/p][p]Hope you are having a great time, and let us know what you think would be cool to have around for the Demo, could be some small feature or items. We will see what we can do about it 😉[/p][p]We also want to invite you to let a review for the Demo on Steam, this could really do wonders for us.❤️[/p][p]Thanks so much for playing and until next time![/p][p]— Aender Lara[/p]