I have been working on the next beta release of Astal Realms. In addition to the terrain and terrain teturing updates and other changes that I have already posted about, I have created a simple demo of the object and building constructor.

The way it works is as follows: Some objects in the world are defined as "Raw Materials".  These objects can be interacted with by the player, and each raw material allows the player to construct one, or a variety of "buildable objects". Rocks or boulders, for example, allow the player to place a variety of bricks of different shapes. Interacting with trees will allow the player to create planks or logs, certain types of plants might allow the player to create vines or ropes, etc etc.

The player can then move and rotate these buildable objects, putting them together to create complex shapes of almost any design from these simple elements (as the images show). The objects created by the player are, of course, visible to other players, and it is possible for other players to modify the work of one player.  This is intended, to prevent the world becoming cluttered with objects over time.

 At the moment, player can only carry one raw material type at a time (such as stone), but they can create an unlimited amount of objects from that raw material (flat bricks, keystones, etc). In future, I will add some kind of inventory system or limited storage system to make this more realistic. I have also considered allowing the player to carry only one item at a time. This would be very realistic (people cannot normally carry one than one heavy brick or log around with them at once), and it would also force the player to build slowly. This is the kind of gameplay that I want, a high level of user agency (freedom to change the world) combined with realistic game mechanics and a wide, open world. 

This will, I hope, ultimately allow players to slowly create a true virtual world, simulating many aspects of the real world in a way that most "games" don't.