Blocksworld Secondary Server

The ***Blocksworld* Secondary Server** (**BW2S**), also known as ***Blocksworld* Secondary** and commonly referred to as ***Blocksworld 2*** (**BW2**) is a second, fan-run and fan-developed server for Linden Lab's 2013 physics-based sandbox game *Blocksworld*. Developed by the *Blocksworld* player Zen1th, the *Blocksworld* Secondary Server is currently the only way to fully play *Blocksworld*, as the original servers were shut down by Linden Lab on June 17, 2020.

BW2 utilizes Exdilin, a mod that allows the *Blocksworld* application to access the Secondary Server. It is currently available on the PC/Mac versions of *Blocksworld* which used to be available on Steam before it was removed on July 2, 2020. For players who did not own the game on Steam, the *Blocksworld* Launcher is to be used, which requires a Blocksworld Wool account. BW2 is now also available on iOS and iPadOS, without jailbreak.

## Features

   The *Blocksworld* Secondary Server contains nearly all of the same features as the original, minus a search bar for models, which was absent on BWPC. All players on BW2 receive unlimited quantities of every block in the game, including unreleased blocks that were taken from the game's files. These unreleased blocks include new terrain, props, and action blocks.

   As well as this, players are also able to create their own mods for *Blocksworld* through Lua scripting. In addition, custom textures and sounds are also able to be added into the game. However, games that contain mods are only playable by players who also have those mods installed. Downloading mods and playing modded worlds is completely unavailable for BW2 on iOS.

## Development

### **Beginning Development (2019)**

The *Blocksworld* Secondary Server began development on 31 October 2019, with its Discord server opening up on 19 November 2021. This was while the Linden servers were still in operation, but they began to go down at seemingly random times. In the following months, the servers completely shut down except for a brief period in February 2020, and thus, BW2 became the only way to fully play the game.

### **BW Launcher and iOS Beta (2020-2021)**

In November 15, 2020, the *Blocksworld* Launcher, also known as the No-Steam Patch, was released, allowing those who did not own the game on Steam to play the game. Following this, a number of issues relating to logins and account registrations were observed but later resolved.

The first beta for BW2 on iOS opened on 13 April 2021 and closed later that day. Following this, BW2 on iOS would still be in beta but would be officially available for widespread use.

### Data Corruption and Shop Bug (2022-present)

The most widespread issue for *Blocksworld 2* came in the form of the "shop bug," an issue that appeared in early March 2022. Said issue followed the "data corruption" issue, in which users were not able to access certain worlds due to corruption. It is believed that the shop bug is a continuation of said data corruption issue, but the extent of this is still unknown. The shop bug affects a user after they purchase something from the model shop, hence the name. Data from the user who published the model will be copied and transferred to the purchaser, which can have different effects depending on what device the purchaser uses. If on PC and using Steam or the Launcher, the user's account will be inaccessible due to their "worlds" tab loading infinitely; if on iOS, the user will still be able to access their account in most cases and will be able to use the other player's models and worlds, but if too much data was transferred, an error will lock them out of the game via a crash loop. Additionally, in every case, the purchaser's user will be changed to that of the seller, albeit with their user ID staying the same. It is believed that the seller's account cannot be affected in any way by the shop bug.

There are currently no fixes for this bug; the most useful advice given is to just not use the model shop at all. Some users, notably in the BW2 Motorsports Community, have devised ways of transferring models to each other manually. Other users have just created new accounts and started from scratch, while some have attempted to use *Blocksworld* World Editor to transfer their files from their affected account to their new one. BW2 creator Zen1th has diagnosed the shop bug as a server-side issue, however, he has not identified exactly what code caused it, so he has confirmed that he will be rewriting the server in a different coding language to iron out any notable bugs.