I wonder if I'm the only one who has dreamed of (and naively attempted) creating a Blockland "sequel"?
Even if it's only a fantasy, being in a position where I could add content directly to the base-game would be great. It's either that or creating another knock-off lego building game that people will accuse of being a Minecraft ripoff.
I'm going to dump the main ideas I've brainstormed for "Sibble". The Blockland-ripoff/massively failed project that basically got me to learn about programming.
- Technic bricks - hinges, turntables, bricks with rotating parts that move everything attached to them. The brick system would have to be revamped, but people expect (and have wanted for ages) to be able to build dynamic structures.
- Tons of bricks, organized for easy access - the base game has only a small percentage of the full Lego catalog. With Minecraft and other voxel-ish building games being so prevalent, Blockland should market itself as being a more accurate simulation of lego-building to stand out, even if it's "blocko". With a lot more bricks, it would be key to make it easy to choose the brick you want.
- Brick placing with the mouse - Using the numpad is weird, and a lot of people don't even have them, needing to resort to the even clunkier "laptop" configuration. If building is a huge part of the game, then it should be handled in an intuitive way. The most obvious control-scheme would be by using the mouse-pointer. Automatically snapping bricks to appropriate angles and placements would also enhance the ease-of-use.
- A professionally-made, unified art-style - this one is really my benefit, but I still think that Blockland lacks any kind of atmosphere that could entice potential players from screenshots/videos/etc. The game right now has a cheap programmer-art look to it. I have clear ideas for what it should look and feel like, but you can PM me if you're curious.
- Stop using Torque - I don't know really anything about game engines, but it just seems like a bad idea to keep holding on to an aging, heavily-modified engine with little to no support. If anything it makes modding a hundred times harder to get into, especially when you have to use an outdated Blender add-on to export to the out-dated format the game uses for models.
Lastly I want to throw out that Legos (the toy) were fun to me as a kid because it was also a social activity. I never really built with them alone, I was with my brother and our friends making up crazy adventures. There should be a big focus on the social-aspect of Blockland, whether that means doing something with the chat system, or weaving servers together into a massive world, it's just a vague thought.
All of these ideas are about appealing to new, potential players. In my mind they're the things that people expect from a game like Blockland when they hear about it for the first time. I've been playing for 7 years and it's my favorite game to play. I love the weird sense of humor everyone has, and seeing a blockhead spin around really fast spraying paint everywhere still makes me laugh. I love that ascii-terror and yaranaika are faces you can equip ingame. I want it to stay relevant, and more than anything I want it to see some bigger success.
