Happy Friday! I’m going to aim to update Blox every Friday from now on. This week, we’re into version 0.31!
As always, you can play Blox here: BLOX - build anything! - Roblox
If you’d like, follow the game to get future updates sent to you directly!
What’s new
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Clouds!
They drift across the sky and cast cool shadows on everything underneath them. They’re still experimental so tell me if they cause any performance issues. -
Better fog!
Fog now looks awesome. This was a Roblox update, but it perfectly coincided with this update, so¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -
Hotbar shortcuts!
Press the number keys 1-9 to instantly switch the block you’re selecting in the hotbar. This came about directly because of a fan suggestion! -
Revamped world loading!
We’ve moved away from the old ‘dumb client’ system, and in 0.31, we now use a ‘distributed’ system for worlds. Without getting into too much technical detail, each client now stores its own copy of the world and updates it whenever something changes. As a consequence, the client can now render the world on its own, rather than having to download the world model from the server. Loading times should now be faster and input lag should be gone, but again, tell me if it causes any performance issues!
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Better fluid performance!
Thanks to the new world loading system, fluid updates should run faster on the server, as the server no longer has to do all the rendering work. On the client side, rendering updates are now queued up instead of executed immediately. This means when lots of blocks are updating (i.e. when you fill a massive hole with water/lava) the work will be spread out over time. This should make fluid run faster, at the expense of not seeing the changes rendered immediately. -
Better text rendering!
The custom font system has been tweaked to properly measure the size of text when formatting codes are used, for example in the chat window. This means the measured size will now properly reflect the on-screen size of text. This fixes a bug where chat messages had extra vertical padding applied in certain edge cases involving wrapping text. -
Invite your friends!
Now that invites have been turned back on, the ‘Invite friends’ option on the main menu has been enabled. There’s no rewards or anything; Roblox disabled that feature anyway (thanks, simulator devs) - but you don’t need an incentive to play with your friends, right?
Known bugs in this version
- The client and server can occasionally disagree and desync for locally placed blocks. I’m looking into a solution at the moment.
- Placing blocks on top of half slabs still doesn’t work perfectly. This will be addressed in a future update to the block placement system.
- You can’t place blocks when you look directly up. This will be fixed in a future update too!
- Saplings don’t grow into trees properly. I’m looking into a solution for this too.
Frequently suggested / what not to suggest
- TNT doesn’t ignite or explode. This isn’t a bug, but frequently reported as one! The reason for disabling this behaviour is to limit griefing on public servers and to limit performance issues, though I may enable it for VIP servers later on.
- Improved/more realistic fluid physics. This is already on the list for a future update!
- Survival mode. This is a long term goal of the project, but for now I’m mainly testing the Blox engine.
- Remove/lower paid access/give me free access. Paid access will end once the game leaves early access - this helps protect against dislike botting and also improves the signal:noise ratio of feedback, which is crucial in these early stages as I build the foundation for future updates. On the bright side, anyone who pays for early access gets the Robux credited to their account in-game (as if you bought a donation), and a special badge is also awarded!
As always, feel free to send me your feedback, questions and bug reports! I’m always listening to help make the game better with your help 