Early Beta Development

The Beta Development period is the time during which Mine Blocks is being rewritten in the Haxe Programming language. This is due to the deprecation of Flash. Versions of Mine Blocks made in Haxe are referred to as Beta Versions, while past versions made in Flash are referred to as Classic Versions. Beta development began on February 2nd, 2020.

Background for Port

In Zanzlanz' 2017 Projects Video he announced his plan to port Mine Blocks along with his other games using Haxe. The reasons he gave were: to be able to support multiple platforms, and to "stop relying on Flash, in the case that browsers stop supporting it". ^{[{{{1}}} Source]} Zanzlanz gave version 1.32 as an estimate for when Mine Blocks would be ported, stating the need for the separation of graphics from logic for mobs, blocks, entities, backgrounds, and ui before this could be done (with this already being done for projectiles). ^{[{{{1}}} Source]}

In July 2017, Adobe deprecated Flash, and announced its End-Of-Life at the end of 2020, and will cease support, distribution, and security updates for Flash Player. ^{[ Source]} Zanzlanz tweeted that he plans to port his bigger games to "HTML5, desktop, and/or mobile" by the time Flash completely loses support. ^Source In the 2018 Projects Video, Zanzlanz announced that he has been working on recoding the mobs as a step towards the Haxe port. ^{[{{{1}}} Source]} He also said that he had made "major progress" in learning Haxe, having started work on the Game Engine to which he would port his games. ^{[{{{1}}} Source]} He said he would like to start working on the Haxe port of Mine Blocks. ^{[{{{1}}} Source]}

The following year, in the 2019 Projects Video Zanzlanz announced that he had finished a "basic functional version" of his Haxe Game Engine, and ported 5 of his other games. ^{[{{{1}}} Source]} He also announced that he planned to port 7 more games, and continue working on the Game Engine. ^{[{{{1}}} Source]} Here he also mentions that he would like to start working on the Mine Blocks port, and announced his plan to release in-development builds once it is started. ^{[{{{1}}} Source]} He also mentioned that he would like to release more frequent builds of the game port only to patrons. ^{[{{{1}}} Source]}

However, the port was delayed again to 2020. ^{[{{{1}}} Source]} In the 2020 Projects video, Zanzlanz announced that he has been making progress in "optimising and adding features" to the Haxe Game Engine, ^{[{{{1}}} Source]} and although the port hadn't been started, the progress made to the Engine which would help in the port. ^{[{{{1}}} Source]} He reiterated his goal from the previous year to port 7 games, however, this year also to release them, ^{[{{{1}}} Source]} and also to port Mine Blocks ^{[{{{1}}} Source]}. He said he would start the port "immediately after releasing this video", ^{[{{{1}}} Source]} and it was started on February 2nd 2020. ^Source Early access builds started being released weekly starting on November 13, 2020, alongside the release of 1.30 Classic.

Early Access History

Version	Date Released	Changes
1.2.0.12	Feb 5, 2021	Held item now shows on player when mining Signs now display text when hovered over with mouse Drink animation now stops playing after drinking a potion Load world button press can be cancelled without opening dialog Crash when throwing snowball fixed Crash when updating rail without proper signal state now fixed
1.2.0.11	Jan 29, 2021	World changes are saved when switching between dimensions Load world button now works in Firefox Nether portals can now be created Cauldron behavior Cake and cactus cake can be eaten Pumpkins can be sheared Falling anvil can now take damage on fall Falling anvil now causes damage to player Crafting recipes for dyed items now work Creative inventory button is properly removed in survival Seaweed item no longer shows water Seaweed now drops all connections when broken in survival Cauldrons default to empty state properly Open inventory button now highlights on mouse over Inventory now closes when using a portal Pressed keys reset on window defocus Crash when opening new ender chest now fixed Crash when mining while underwater now fixed Crash when using TNT in a world containing balloons now fixed Crash when moving potions in inventory fixed [Technical] Chunk cache resets when switching between dimensions [Technical] World loading was tweaked
1.2.0.10	Jan 22, 2021	Creative inventory Crash caused by opening generated chest fixed Added temporary button for switching gamemodes Furnace now drops contained items when broken Item rendering for carpet has proper size Item rendering fixed for fire egg, candy apple, poisonous potato, baked potato, golden carrot, cooked bacon, cooked mutton, and snow ball Rainbow carpet and wool no longer flicker when first opening a container Detector and activator rail item graphics swapped Cauldron is no longer invisible when dragging in inventory
1.2.0.9	Jan 15, 2021	Enabled loading of survival worlds Furnace functionality Chest interface Ender chest interface Crafting recipes that keep item state no longer crash the game Position of combinatory crafting recipes no longer matters Jump height increased slightly Item graphics corrected for lapis, raw porkchop, blaze powder, slimeball, enchanted book, furnace minecart, dispenser, and dropper Item drops are no longer offset when closing crafting table Sun and moon glow are no longer dark Crash caused by balloon popping is now fixed Crash caused by tilling past the reach distance is now fixed
1.2.0.8	Jan 8, 2021	Crafting Crafting table behavior Mining, eating, slime block, and portal particles Mouse hides while dragging items Items no longer vanish when combining large stacks HUD elements now display for adventure game mode Block mining animation no longer lingers an extra frame Armor slots now longer show invalid items upon death Newly created worlds now start in survival (with cheats, technically)
1.2.0.7	Jan 1, 2020	Happy New Year! Inventory screen Very basic inventory item manipulation Hotbar inventory button opens the inventory Rain and snow can occur Rain sound effect Carpet and slabs no longer fly off of the hotbar Bone shurikens and shears now display properly Improved platform (stick) behavior Anvil damage state behavior is now retained Crash caused by null drop item fixed
1.2.0.6	Dec 25, 2020	Merry Christmas! Snowfall ❄ Leaves, chests, and grass have a seasonal look XP, health, hunger, air, and armor bars Player can no longer breath in full blocks of flowing water Air timer speed corrected Items retain their data when picked up Crash caused by picking stained glass is now fixed
1.2.0.5	Dec 18, 2020	Drops Drop item key (Q) Removed zoom keys, at least for now Falling block entities Basic TNT behavior Updated blocks no longer re-render indefinitely Underwater depth is no longer incorrectly calculated Darkness calculation is no longer exaggerated in some situations Crash caused by eating oranges or cooked pork is now fixed
1.2.0.4	Dec 11, 2020	A smaller update this week, sorry :) Bone block texture no longer appears as glowstone Glowstone emits a block light instead of a torch light Jack o'Lantern now emits light Added hotbar item name display Dying no longer causes softlock despite lack of animation or respawn screen Crash caused by generating dimension more than once is now fixed Crash caused by generating snow off-screen is now fixed Crash caused by mining blocks without mining data is now fixed Crash caused by generating certain skyhold configurations is now fixed
1.2.0.3	Dec 4, 2020	Basic lighting Lighting-related block behaviors ported Remaining item graphics are implemented Hotbar items can now be selected by number keys Fire can now damage player Note block behavior ported Crash caused by clicking multiple inventory slots at once is now fixed Crash caused by generating skyhold is now fixed Crash caused by Adblock settings is now fixed Crash caused by entering nether is now fixed Crash caused by turning off redstone is now fixed
1.2.0.2	Nov 27, 2020	Blue screen on world load fixed Hardware acceleration is no longer required to play Piston, rail, fence, and gate behaviors Basic hotbar functionality General item usage and interaction More preset items were added to inventory when creating world (Try middle-clicking to place different items!) Mining unused furnaces no longer crashes Returning from nether no longer respawns at bedrock Particles no longer appear above player Acid no longer has fire spread behavior Version number font size increased The same world can be loaded twice in a row Placeholder warning text is a more legible color
1.2.0.1	Nov 20, 2020	Blue screen on world load fixed Liquid and fire spread physics Redstone dust & torch, door, button, lever, and pressure plate behaviors Leaves, mycelium, frosted ice, saplings, and farmland behaviors Mining sound volume has proper panning Jump timer speed corrected
1.2.0.0	Nov 13, 2020	Initial release

Development Before Early Access

Date	Changes
Nov 12, 2020	Announced the release of the early access build on November 13th Source
Sep 19, 2020	50% complete Source
Sep 12, 2020	Torch graphics are closer to the original Source Wrote particle and entity systems Source Added balloons Source
Sep 05, 2020	Reticle and crosshair Source
Aug 31, 2020	Initial selection of block logic behaviors, like bamboo growth and attachment Source
Aug 29, 2020	Ability to alter blocks and block selector box Source
Aug 15, 2020	Player can explore worlds, 20% complete overall Source
May 30, 2020	Finished porting world migration, and added vignette Source
May 03, 2020	Mob heads, leaving only spawnskin heads Source
Apr 26, 2020	Portals and liquids Source Only barrier blocks, frosted ice, and mob heads left. SourceSource
Apr 25, 2020	Fire rendering done Source
Apr 24, 2020	Redstone dust states, though not the same as Mine Blocks Classic Source Magma block states Source Only 6 types of block renderers left Source
Apr 19, 2020	Started adding block events, implementing rainbow blocks and cauldron mouse-over states Source
Apr 12, 2020	Added sun, moon, and stars Source Star rotation is now centered. Source
Apr 10, 2020	Sky gradient and parallax tree background. Source
Mar 29, 2020	Added wool colors Source Carpets, beds, stained glass, backdrops, wool backdrops, and glass backdrops mostly done, apart from rainbow wools/carpet Source
Mar 21, 2020	Added render states for slabs, stairs, furnace, redstone torches, and brewing stands Source Stairs/slabs match the texture of the blocks around them, regardless of orientation Added render states for fences, gates and iron bars Source Added render states for pistons and rails Source Finished all blocks that are simpler to render, the rest requiring new functionality to be added to the engine Source
Mar 15, 2020	Pumpkin faces, rope, cake, dispenser, and dropper block states. Source Crops, portal frames, hay bales, and lanterns Source
Mar 02, 2020	Added states for doors, anvils, torches, ender portal frames, and crops. Source New torch texture New redstone torch graphic New odd torch graphic (to confirm) Fixed alpha blending yet again Source
Mar 01, 2020	World chunking, block rendering and block states Source Added all block graphics, apart from backdrops, stairs, slabs, and mob heads Source
Feb 24, 2020	World loading and exploration Source
Feb 04, 2020	Created the main menuSource
Feb 02, 2020	Started development Source

See Also

• Version History
• First 30 days