Roadmap and release notes

0.9.x — about once a month

The fixes and requests of the first users, first. Planned: a 2D UV layout editor.

1.0 — planned for spring 2027

A World Generator workshop, no AI: size, shape, paths, caves, water and biomes, set by sliders, a seed or a rough sketch, and the world it makes stays an ordinary, editable world. Smooth shading for tiles. Incremental rebuild in the engine plugins, curved joins for the special shapes, plugins level with the app (fluids included). Free for everyone who owns MarchingBlocks; the price is planned to rise for new buyers.

After 1.0

Two new workshops: Props (objects of every kind, plants included) and Houses, free for Early Access buyers. A single-piece terrain with attached objects (rocks, stumps). macOS and Linux, if people ask for them.

0.9.0 — Early Access upcoming · 2027-01-12

2027-01-12

The first public version of MarchingBlocks. Everything below works today, on Windows.

The witness

• One block, the witness, holds the 52 tiles a world needs; the software cuts them out and proves none is missing.
• Geometry: a modeller with Blender's gestures — select, move, rotate, scale, extrude, inset, bevel, loop cut, knife, fill holes, sculpt brushes. Every linked copy of a tile follows.
• Shared borders: a border vertex moves in every neighbouring tile and every layer; "Match other layers to this one" closes old gaps.
• Variants: up to nine sculptures per tile, mixed by a stable random draw, weights, or by hand.
• Texturing: materials, box and UV projection, 3D paint with layers and eraser, atlas, PBR maps derived from the image, texture sets, emission, bake base colour from the geometry.
• Animation: scroll, frames and pulse on any map, in sync or offset per copy.
• Round trip with Blender: one .glb out, the sculpted .glb back in, the painting stays.

The world

• Layers with their own witness, one world with no seam where they meet; Transitions blend their looks.
• Painting tools: add, dig, select, rect, box, brushes, copy / cut / paste, extrude, widen, hollow, fix diagonal contacts.
• Special shapes: tunnel, well, bridge, balcony, stairs, room, room from selection.
• Fluids: lakes, rivers, waterfalls, one sea; the water follows when you dig; six looks including lava, swamp and glowing acid.
• Foliage: import .glb plants, plant them one by one or with a brush, wind.
• Play test: walk, run, jump, swim, fly; sun, sky, effects and weather.
• A small example world, projects that save themselves, a built-in user guide (F1).

Your engine

• Export the tileset (.mbset) or the painted world (.mbworld) for the free MarchingBlocks Paint plugins for Godot, Unity and Unreal. What each plugin does is listed on the plugins page.

On this website

• A personal license key, checked offline; a Windows installer; a free demo (everything except saving and exporting); an update check at launch that you can turn off.

Known limits

• Windows only. A Vulkan graphics card is required.
• The installer is not code-signed yet: Windows SmartScreen may warn before running it.
• A plant does not follow the ground if you dig under it later.