Eden World Builder Revision History

Development

menu (early development version)

1.0: 20101202 (First release version)

Sandbox game with 15 types of blocks:

Blocks available in 1 colour: grass, grass with flowers, dark stone, light stone, dirt, sand, TNT, tree-trunk, brick, slate, diagonal stripes

wood (light brown, dark brown)

leaf (green, yellow, orange, red)

crystal/wallpaper (emerald, ruby, amethyst, white)

cloth/wool (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, magenta)

Three tools: add block, remove block (pickaxe), burn (fire)

directional arrows for movement and "jump" button

Additional commands within block menu: save, quit, warp home

world sharing

menu (Eden 1.0)

some blocks (Eden 1.0)

the brick texture is different; this might be a pre-release beta

more blocks (Eden 1.0)

1.0.1: 20101207

Save Files Fixed

1.0.2: 20110126

Joystick controls

camera mode

UI and menu improvements

support for all iPhone and iPod devices with iOS 3.2 and higher

1.1.0: 20110311

Improved UI graphics, improved performance, bug fixes.

1.1.1: 20110314

Improved UI graphics, improved performance, bug fixes (again).

1.5: 20110906

Eden is now a universal app (works on iPod touches, iPads, and iPhones)

New tool: paint (colour palette).

Select a colour, then touch any block in the world to change that block's colour

Blocks menu changed:

It now has only one each of: wood, leaf, crystal/wallpaper

the old "wool" blocks are gone completely, but looked very similar to coloured sand

the old "diagonal stripes" block is gone completely (or possibly changed to "glass")

New blocks:

"shingles"

glass (mostly transparent)

"square" (plain white block with a gray/black square outline)

ivy/vines (you can climb on)

ladder (you can climb on)

ice (slippery block with very little friction)

"trampoline" (makes the player bounce)

cloud (plain blank white block)

slope/ramps blocks (you can walk up and down them without jumping)

(ice, wood, stone, shingles)

wedge (angled wall) blocks

(ice, wood, stone, shingles)

Fence you can see through

Water, has animated texture and you can swim in it

Lava, has animated texture and gives you a little bounce

(Lava and water are regular blocks and don't flow, yet)

Shadows (every block except cloud casts a faint shadow: blocks below it will be a little bit darker)

Searching by name for shared worlds

Preview screenshots for shared worlds

Cloud hosting for maps for faster downloads

Caves are now an option (off by default)

Completely flat/empty world available for download

Touching the pickaxe or the burn icon when already in that mode changes to a 'nothing' mode (useful if you accidentally build, break, or burn stuff)

Automatic view distance reduction for complex scenes

Major rendering engine improvements

Collision system reworked to support non-cube things like ramps

Added a gradient to the sky

A couple of menu animations

Various bug fixes

New sounds and art

Major performance enhancements

Known issues: Translucencies and water/lava don't always render perfectly No way to build a painted block with one touch Fixed 1.6 Cloth/Wool block removed for space reasons Water current needs fine-tuning

undesirable changes Caves are a hollow echo of their former greatness. They are

"squashed" vertically and no longer have variegated walls.

menu (Eden 1.5)

colour palette (Eden 1.5)

blocks (Eden 1.5)

In this image, notice how the arrangement in 4 of the columns

almost agrees with the arrangement of blocks in the rows of the Eden 1.0

menu shown above. This suggests that this world was originally created

in Eden 1.0 or 1.1, and the 5th column was added later. That would

mean that the "white/blue diagonal stripes" block in Eden 1.0

became the glass block in Eden 1.5.

1.5.1: 20110907

Fixed memory leak in shared menu

1.5.2: 20110913

Added choice between flat and normal terrain generation for new worlds

Added choice to set a new 'home' location

Made auto-view distance reduction less aggressive

Fixed bug where music wouldn't play when turned back on in options

Fixed memory leak with screenshots

1.6: 20111202

Retina support and graphics update

Flowing liquids (easy to build with and remove so you don't permanently flood your world)

Better explosions and improved fire

Much faster loading

Various interface improvements

Build Icon shows current block, you can now paint the current block and then build with that block

Ice slides will automatically adjust camera when you turn

Auto-jumps when moving forward, auto-jumps when placing a block under you (this can be turned off)

Climbing ladders or vines can be done at two speeds (hold the jump button to get the faster speed) (this may have been implemented in an earlier revision)

New option: Graphics quality toggle: Fast/Best

Currently just disables in-game retina on fast, has no effect on non-retina devices but will in future updates.

Adjusted lighting on angled walls and clouds

New title music

Translated app description to 9 languages. Full app localization planned.

glitches

If you watch a burning block from far away, the fire and smoke appear excessively large.

undesirable changes

Removed option: Invert Camera. It doesn't make sense with touch/swipe controls

Removed option: Caves. "Due to rendering engine limitations they have a high performance cost. To play a world with caves you can download an old one from the shared worlds."

1.7: 20120119

Five creatures to play with and put in your creations.

In addition to being adorable they are game objects, they interact with all the special blocks (like ice slides/water/etc.) and tools.

Lots of new sound effects and music.

Various minor bug fixes and tweaks, partially listed below:

TNT now launches you away from explosions

Fixed freeze downloading maps for partially connected or weak internet connections

Fixed some rendering glitches and rare crashes.

Glass texture changed

Changed how water current works slightly

New option: Toggle creatures on and off in the Settings Menu.

undesirable changes

Removed option: Graphics quality toggle

menu (Eden 1.7)

colour palette (Eden 1.7)

only the icons on the right have changed

blocks (Eden 1.7)

there is a tiny difference in the tree-trunk texture

"version 2" teasers

For about three years there were various promises of a version 2.0, supported by screen shots from the developer.

menu (2.0 teaser)

2.0: 20150216

New blocks: Steel, Light, Portal, Door, Fireworks, Treasure Crystal

New creatures (Stalker, Charger) that are angry by default

New terrain generation including several new biomes.

All terrain is pre-generated, and stored in a file called "Eden.eden" within the app.

The terrain is 2880×2880 blocks in size (180×180 chunks) and there is an invisible wall when you try to walk outside this area.

When you make a new world, only your position is randomly chosen. The biome you see is a result of where you were placed in the world.

Only the changes you make are actually stored in your world file. Most of the 2880×2880 world does not need to be uploaded or downloaded when worlds are shared.

View distance increased.

The game now keeps 18×18 = 324 chunks in memory (each consisting of 16×16 blocks, 64 blocks high); in Eden 1.7 it kept only 12×12 chunks.

The algorithm for deciding when to load new terrain is more complicated. It appears to try to defer loading in cases where you get near a frontier but then reverse direction. The result is that in most gameplay the "Loading" delays happen less frequently than the 2/3 that one would expect (however, each load takes about twice as long).

Paint bomb: Place a coloured TNT block and explode it: instead of destroying blocks, it makes tham all have that colour.

When creatures are painted they change colour in a more sensible way

Change colour of sky by selecting a colour and touching any empty area of sky.

It saves multiple sky colours per world; when "Loading" delay happens, it decides whether to use a different colour based on what colour you painted the sky when you were recently in that area of the world.

When sky is painted black, the world turns to night-time. Light blocks work similarly to in Minecraft; also portals, lava and creatures are drawn at full brightness; but everything else is significantly darkened.

Improved flowers by making them 3D (flat quads that always turn to face the viewer).

New "physics" (calculations related to movement)

Walking is faster

Climbing up/down can be done even when you're turned to face away from the ladder or vine (previously this made you jump off the ladder right away)

Movement while "hanging" from a ceiling made of ladder or vines is now very VERY slow (but hold the jump button to move quickly)

If you're moving when the "Loading" message appears, you don't have to move your finger and you'll keep moving after the load is done (in Eden 1.7 you had to start a new "touch" to continue moving)

Downhill ice slides have a glitch (described below)

Many "cannons" are broken (see below)

New fire animations

Fire is now painted on four sides (not top or bottom) of each burning block, and particles for "smoke" are different.

If you cause a "Loading" delay, any blocks that were burning are immediately deleted, rather than remaining as phantom images.

Rearranged inventory.

Save, Warp Home, Take Photo and Exit World moved to new "Gears" menu, accessed from gears icon in upper-left corner.

This frees up a row at the bottom of the main menu, which is now just a block-selection menu.

Sharing (upload/download) changes

When viewing world preview there is a "red flag" icon; use it to report inappropriate content.

Changed title of "Popular" list to "Featured".

"sort by date" list is available again and titled "Recent"

Health system (optional): if enabled in main game settings menu, you take "hits" from angry creatures and lava, and automatically heal over time; if you "die" you are re-spawned at home location.

Improved screen dimensions on newer devices

All music selections play while in world selection / options menus

new glitches

A portal can be used to drop through the ground. Place a portal on any flat area. Then remove the blocks in front of it and the block immediately underneath it. Now step down onto this lower level and walk into the portal (so that your "head" enters the portal but your "feet" do not). You'll start falling through the ground. If there is an open area underneath you, you'll stop there; otherwise you'll re-spawn in the sky directly above where you just were.

A portal can be used to see through the ground. Dig a hole straight down; then remove two blocks in front of you and put a portal there; then dig one more block down, and remove the block under the portal. Now walk part-way into the portal (but not far enough to trigger the glitch that drops you through the ground). You'll be able to see things that are otherwise hidden, like caves or tunnels.

When emerging from a portal, any blocks that were in the space you emerge into will get broken. This happens either right in front of the exiting portal, or one block further, depending on which way the exiting portal is pointed: portals facing "south" and "east" can be hidden behind a wall, and when you emerge from the portal it will appear that you have teleported to a place from which you cannot return.

Animals can walk up in the sky. To see this glitch: pick up an animal, build a ladder as high as you can, face up and place the animal up in the sky. Sometimes it will not fall all the way back to the ground, but will stop at a height at least a couple blocks above your head. It depends on your location, so if you don't see the glitch in one area, move to another and try again. Once an animal is in the sky, it moves around as if on invisible terrain. I have seen animals climbing up as if walking up a hill, gliding as if sliding on ice, rising up as if in water, and "shaking" back and forth as if trapped inside rock.

Related to the previous glitch: Moofs (the cow-like creature) sometime move erratically when placed on top of a cloud that is at the topmost possible height.

undesirable changes

crashes in complex areas of large worlds

No longer runs in any iOS prior to iOS 5.1.1

Normal worlds created in Eden 1.7 (or earlier) no longer have normal terrain everywhere. Any areas that were previously explored are unchanged, but if you wander into any new area, you'll get plain "flat" terrain.

Ice-slides work even worse than before:

Sliding downhill on ice, you'll randomly be bounced out straight (as if you've hit flat horizontal ice)

Sliding horizontally on ice, when you bounce off a wall the camera does not always rotate to reflect your new direction of motion (this was a problem in 1.7 too, but now it's much worse)

Motion sometimes drifts erratically to one side or the other, causing random and incorrect movement at corners or intersections between two ice-slides

Player cannot jump to touch a block that is 1 space above their head: this means that many "water elevators" fail to work (though if you jump many times whilst moving forward against a barrier, it will sometimes touch the water and float up.)

No more shadows

Many of the "cannons" (glitches involving a combination of ice, lava, and/or trampoline blocks, formerly used to make high jumps) no longer work, or are random/unpredictable/unreliable.

The old "see through the ground" glitch (dig a hole straight down, fill it with wood, set the wood on fire, walk away until "Loading..." happens, then walk back and drop into the hole) no longer works. However there is a new glitch to see through the ground using portals.

When "flying" up and/or falling through air, you can change your speed and direction. Version 2.0 is much more resistant to this: you can only move "a little" as compared to what was possible in version 1.7.

Some of the sound effects associated with walking have changed: for example, walking on grass is now silent.

menu (Eden 2.0)

blocks (Eden 2.0)

2.1 Beta

As of 2015 March, a new version is in beta testing.

New block: Explode/expand. When lit on fire, it "explodes" to form a 5×5×3 block of blocks of a selected type.

undesirable changes

No longer runs in iOS 7 or any older version of iOS.

menu (Eden 2.1 beta)

(Change lists for the earlier versions of Eden are based mainly on this page on the wiki; some of the changelogs are also available on the official Eden site.)

This page was written in the "embarrassingly readable" markup language RHTF, and was last updated on 2020 May 12.

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