Our heart's goal: Blocks Beyond the Stars on the Xbox 🎮✨

November 7, 2026

Some goals can be justified with numbers, and some are goals of the heart. Ours has been written openly in our mission since July: one day, Blocks Beyond the Stars should run on the Xbox, and on Steam. We don't want to make money with it; the game is and stays free. It's about something else: it would simply be wonderful to start our own game on the console in the living room. This is a father-son project, and the joy of building it is a goal in itself for us. That is exactly why the Xbox matters, even though it won't earn us a cent.

Fix first, then grow. So that this doesn't stay a castle in the air, our roadmap gives us a fixed order: fix → deepen → operate → widen. First, the mechanics that are already in the game have to work without bugs and be fun. Then come new materials and recipes that connect to what's already there. Running the live game well, on glitch.fun, in the portal and on our servers, is part of it too. Only after that do we widen where the game runs: first your own server on a Raspberry Pi, and right at the end Steam and the Xbox. So the console is deliberately the last horizon, not the next one.

One thing is already happening, though: the controller. Full gamepad support is the one investment that helps Steam, the Steam Deck and the Xbox all at once. That's why we didn't wait until the end. Besides, the controller is Justus' favourite way to play anyway. 🎮 By now you can reach all menus, both editors, every text field (through an on-screen keyboard) and all 20 arcade games with a pad. There is a controller page of its own in the settings, the button hints can show Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo buttons, and since version 2026.10.20 the gamepad rumbles on Windows for hits, explosions and hard landings. The roadmap states the goal clearly: a whole session of menus, crafting, building, flying and chat without touching the mouse once. We keep testing until we get there. Our playtest with an Xbox pad on Windows is still open.

Why Steam first. When we looked into it in July, the result was clear: Steam is the more realistic first step. A free game is fine there, open source too, and our own servers are allowed to join in. We already have Windows and Linux versions, and the Linux version is also the way onto the Steam Deck. There is one honest catch that matters to us as a kids' game, though: Steam accounts start at age 13. Steam would be the way for families and older kids. For the youngest players, the browser, glitch.fun and our portal stay the first door.

The Xbox in our own living room. For the console there are two very different paths. The small one is called Dev Mode: any regular Xbox can be switched into a developer mode for little money, and then you may put your own game on your own console, without a store and without certification. For us, that would be the family win. According to our research, Unity can build the version of the game this needs, and some of what we learned for the browser helps here too. In the browser, for example, the singleplayer server already runs right inside the game, and that is exactly what the Xbox would need as well.

The big path: onto the shelf. The second path leads through ID@Xbox into the real Xbox store, and that is a different league: an application with a concept, a non-disclosure agreement, certification, sign-in with Xbox accounts and their child-safety settings. We only plan for that once Steam is done and Dev Mode has shown that the game runs on the console. Because Microsoft requires confidentiality, the Xbox-specific part could not live in our open repository. The game itself stays open source.

Child safety from the start. We made ourselves one promise along the way: age ratings (PEGI and IARC) and the consoles' rules are design inputs for us, not paperwork at the end. Much of it is already in the game: no horror, no purchases, a chat filter, password-protected worlds. If we get rated one day, it shouldn't be a surprise anymore.

What we don't promise. There is no date, and PlayStation or Switch are explicitly not on the list. One console dream at a time. 😄 But every time Justus zips through the menus with his pad, we get a little closer to the Xbox.