A voxel building game where you build finer than the block

Is there a game where you can build anything?

Yes, and this one doesn't hold you to the grid. Openworld is a voxel sandbox on a whole, round planet: walk straight and you come back to where you started, under a real sky with Moon phases and eclipses, all the way to the Sun, by way of the Moon and the planets. On Mac (native Apple Silicon), Windows and Linux.

Most block games give you one brick size: the 1 m cube. Openworld keeps the comfort of the meter (you build fast) and adds the voxel: a cube of 25 cm, a quarter of a block. Window sills, thin walls, a lamp exactly in the middle of a table: the details that make a house look like a house. That's what a voxel game really means.

Finer than the 1 m cube

Everything in the world, from the hills to the cave walls, is made of 25 cm voxels. A 1 m block is simply 4 × 4 × 4 of them: 64 voxels. That changes three things when you build.

• 25 cmone voxel, the game's real resolution
• 64voxels in a 1 m block
• 4096voxels in a full stack of raw material
• 48voxels in an L corner (and in stairs)

• Raw material places one voxel at a time. Hold some stone, dirt or planks and right-click: one 25 cm voxel goes against the face you aim at. That's how you sculpt a rock, carve a frieze or fill a gap that no shape fits.
• Breaking is just as precise. Bare-handed, you take a single voxel. With a pickaxe (or an axe, shovel, shears) you take the voxels of the material you aim at inside its 1 m cube: dig fast, without wrecking the wall next door. A thin gray outline always shows what the click will take.
• Shapes are real voxels too. A slab, a stair or a pillar placed in the world is written as voxels of its material: you can trim it later, voxel by voxel.

tap to carve · or pick a shape

Half slabs, walls and pillars: the building shapes

Every building material (stone, granite, marble, bricks, planks of each wood, concrete, glass and many more) comes in the same families of shapes. In creative, the catalogue shows them family by family; in survival, you cut them yourself (see below).

• Blocks: the 1 m cube, and the pillar, a 50 cm square column standing in the middle of its cell.
• Slabs: the slab (half a block, 50 cm), the half slab (one 25 cm layer at the bottom or the top of its cell) and the vertical slab, a half block standing up against the side you face.
• Stairs, which turn into corner pieces on their own.
• Walls and fences: the wall (a 50 cm post, with 75 cm-high arms toward the walls next to it), the fence (a 25 cm post and two rails) and the pane (a 25 cm panel, full height: a window in glass, a partition in planks).
• Doors and trapdoors, in wood or metal: a door is 1 m wide and 2 m high, one voxel thick, and swings on its hinge with a right-click.
• Storage: wooden chests. Two side by side make a big chest.

Slabs that fill the right half

A slab goes in the half of the cell you aim at. Put a second one on top of a bottom slab and it fills the top half; put it against its side and it stays at the same height. Vertical slabs work the same way: one against the inside face of another fills the other half, one on top extends the wall upward.

Stairs and walls that turn corners

Place a stair next to another one turned a quarter turn and it becomes an outside or inside corner. Vertical slabs do even better: a vertical slab turned a quarter turn in front of another one changes it into an L corner of 48 voxels. Two thin walls meet with no hole, and a T closes too. Walls, fences and panes link to their own kind, to cubes and to pillars, and redraw themselves when a neighbor arrives or leaves.

Furniture placed to the voxel

Tables, chairs, lamps, vases, shelves, curtains, rugs… Openworld's furniture and decorations aren't stuck to the 1 m grid. They go exactly where you aim, to 25 cm, the way a torch does, and hold on the way they should: standing on what's under them (a block, a table, a stool), on a wall (wall lamps, shelves, curtains, switches, plaques: back to the wall, whatever way you look) or hanging (chandeliers, ceiling lamps). Aim at a wall with a standing piece and it slides down to the floor; aim at a wall with a chandelier and it goes up under the ceiling.

The preview shows the exact voxels the piece will take, and turns red when nothing would hold it or the spot is taken. Ideas for that part are in the guide to decorating and lighting your house.

Where shapes come from: cut from whole blocks

In survival, shapes are made on the 3 × 3 crafting grid, in the material of the blocks you put in: birch planks give birch stairs, granite gives granite walls. They are cut from whole blocks, and a shape never gives more matter than it took, so nobody can mint stone by crouch-breaking.

• 2 × 2 blocks → 4 cubes
• 3 blocks in a row → 6 slabs; 3 in a column → 4 vertical slabs
• 6 blocks in a staircase → 6 stairs
• 3 × 2 blocks → 6 walls; block, stick, block → 8 fences
• a cube → 4 pillars; a slab → 2 half slabs; a vertical slab → 1 pane
• planks or metal sheet, 2 × 3 → 3 doors; two side by side → 2 trapdoors

Not sure what a material can become? Point at it in your inventory and press I: the item sheet lists every way to get it and everything it's used for. The recipe book's Construction tab shows the patterns with the real items.

Building a house step by step

Here is a simple order of work for a first real house, the kind that holds up the night and looks like something in daylight.

1. 1

   Pick the spot and level it

   A pickaxe takes the voxels of the material you aim at in its 1 m cube: dig out a flat floor quickly. Fill the holes with raw material, one voxel at a time.

2. 2

   Lay the footing

   A row of stone cubes or bricks one block high. It keeps the walls off the grass and draws a clean outline.

3. 3

   Raise the walls

   Cubes of planks for a solid wall, or vertical slabs for thin walls that save matter. At each corner, turn one a quarter turn: it becomes an L corner.

4. 4

   Open the windows and the door

   Panes of glass in the wall, a wooden or metal door (1 × 2 m) that opens with a right-click.

5. 5

   Put on the roof

   Stairs on each side, which turn the corners by themselves, then slabs along the ridge. A pillar or a short wall makes a chimney.

6. 6

   Light it and furnish it

   Torches and lamps let you see night monsters coming (the walls are what keep them out); then a table, a bed and a chest, placed to the voxel.

Survival or creative: two ways to build

In survival, everything is spent: a voxel or a shape you place leaves your stack, and breaking gives back exactly what you break (a shape broken standing comes back whole). Raw matter stacks by 64 blocks, that is 4,096 voxels. Coal and iron sit in every cave, and the beginner's guide to the first nights tells you what to gather before dark.

In creative, nothing is spent and the catalogue holds every material and every shape. Switch with F5 (on a survival server, only if your role allows it) and tap Space twice to fly: perfect for a castle or for trying out a facade before building it for real.

Building on a round planet

The world of Openworld is a whole round planet, but you never build on a slope because of it. The ground is unrolled flat around you: your walls are straight and your floors level. The curve only shows from high up, when you fly and see the horizon fall away.

Building with friends

Everything works in multiplayer. The server checks every placement and every break (reach, alignment, what's already there), so a build stays the same for everyone. On a survival server, admins can protect zones so your village stays yours. To start a shared world, see how to play with friends.

Copying a build: your own prefabs

Made a piece you'd like everywhere: a window frame, a lamp post, a garden chair? The architect's desk lets you draw your own prefab, voxel by voxel, in up to 8 materials, then build copies of it from its blueprint. Everything is explained in the guide to saving your designs as blueprints.