3 years of Fragment | Looking back, looking forward, and other miscellaneous things

-Dirtti, 28.1.2026

Time sure flies when you're waiting for Lao, doesn't it?

3 years ago today, on 28.1.2023, Fragment 1.0.0 released. It's weird, it simultaneously feels like an eternity ago, and like no time at all. And to think we aren't even at the halfway point yet...

So, first of all, where's 2.2.0? The short answer: Still working on it. The long answer: I was initially hoping I could reveal the update officially today, to commemorate 3 years of Fragment, but unfortunately it still needs some more work, and I don't want to reveal things too long before release. What I can say is that we're getting there, and it's definitely releasing this year, (thank god) and most likely in the first half of the year. No promises as usual though, but that's where it's at.

So what will we be doing instead?

Looking back

Having come this far, it's hard not to look back on where we started, and it sure has been a journey.

Let's start at the very start with a history lesson for those unaware, before Fragment, there was Funland, a Minecraft Bedrock map with a very similar premise and universe. Long story short, what started as a simple place to hang out with friends with over a decade ago, eventually transformed into something more resembling Fragment.

Many of the people and places you have, and will encounter on your journey through Fragment originate from here, while many others are completely new additions, or simply don't exist in Fragment's world.

But, while many things carried over to Fragment, there is one major difference.

Funland's storytelling was frankly an afterthought, or it would be more accurate to say that I simply didn't know what the story was trying to say. Things simply happened. Hype moments and aura.

One of the big reasons for the creation of Fragment was that I could start fresh. Wipe the slate clean and actually think things through. For most of it's existence, Funland did not have a finish line, it was simply a matter of seeing what new destination I would come up with, what new legendary items would powercreep the last. Fragment has a purpose, a deadline. And with every update we're getting closer.

Lessons learned

But Funland, too, had a planned ending. Multiple, actually. What happened with those?

For the first one, there was going to be a Fortnite style live-event at the main social space where this portal generator thing we strapped to the front of our biggest ship would malfunction, and you'd get sucked in towards it, and that's it.

That would have lead into a Funland sequel, where you and some of the main characters got teleported along with the ship back to Earth, and there would have been this like nanobot virus thing that had taken over everything. (The main enemy faction would have been like Enderman themed or something.)

The interesting thing about this one is that I actually started work on it, creating the entire first mission before scrapping the entire thing because my friends bullied me so much about it being a terrible idea. (Entirely deserved.)

This was a major turning point in the history of Funland/Fragment, it was the first time I had gotten so much pushback on an idea I had already started developing, and I think it changed the way I would go on to develop future content. After this, I would go back to adding on to the original Funland, with the quality of the expansion slowly improving, though still massively held back by the terrible systems/code that came before.

This is also when I would start thinking about the story I want to tell with more care, and would mark the start of me planning multiple expansions ahead. That too would eventually cause problems though, when I got to a point where I was developing 3 Funland expansions at the same time. (The infamous Timelines incident.) There really wasn't a reason to actually make content for all of them at the same time, I would just work on whatever interested me the most at the time, so my time would be split between too many things, not finishing anything. As an example, the middle expansion of the 3 had by far the most work done, with even full dungeon encounters finished, before the previous one's campaign was done.

Now, while I can't say much about those plans, since they involve places/concepts that would spoil future Fragment content, I can tell you about Funland 2 2, that's right, there was another concept for a sequel.

Basically, this sequel would take place following Funland's planned ending, but the story would be for the most part a standalone thing. The idea was that you would play as a SkeleTech guy this time, instead of a human. This one actually had a lot more planned for it than the other 'Funland 2' concept, but inversely it had basically 0 development done by the time it was scrapped.

Most of the plans were around gameplay/sandbox, like having your xp bar be a 'ability energy' bar, and you would have 3 classes to pick from that each had a unique ability. Other plans were big changes to the gear progression systems, which would actually pave the way for the design ideology behind Fragment's progression. (Things like having Epic gear be much harder to get early on, and endgame activities being much more rewarding than easier things.)

One of the destinations planned for this map was actually the Lost City, since before Fragment, it had never been explorable outside of specific missions in Funland. After scrapping this project, I would later repurpose some of these plans for Fragment 1.0.0, since I still wanted to do something with the Lost City.

Other plans like the Templar structures in the Lost City and the entire Starside legendary mission were also later used in Fragment, so the time spent on them didn't entirely go to waste.

Early concept "art" for the Lost City in [Funland 2].

Legendary armor concepts for the 3 classes in [Funland 2].

Even though they seem very bland and simple now, for their time these concepts were pushing the limits of what was possible for bedrock commands.

But, while the development of the last 3 Funland expansion and the sequel were a hot mess, they honestly would have likely eventually been finished if nothing else went wrong, but something did.

Around October 2021, this change happened:

This broke Funland almost entirely. Barely any missions or activities remained in a playable state because my terrible command block logic at the time depended on this funky interaction.

Realistically, it was fixable, but it would have taken a lot of work. Too much, with me already working on so much at the same time. And so, I kind of just gave up on Funland, releasing none of the expansions I had been working on.

Then, in early November the same year, work would begin on Fragment, which would release a little over a year later.

Now, while the change to command blocks sealed the deal, I think I was on the verge of giving up before that. Obviously the stuff with the development of the expansions, but for a long time I had known I wanted a reset, a fresh start, so I could fix my earlier mistakes, redo everything in a way I would be happy with. And that's what got us to Fragment.

From the start, I knew I needed to get Fragment right. There would be no more do overs, no resets, no second chances. I've spent over half my life now with this universe, and I knew this was going to be it. Every mistake. Every lesson learned. Every scrapped idea. Every session of rambling to friends about future plans. This is where they all converge. Everything I want to do with this universe, this world, it's characters... This is the last chance they have to exist. So I have to get it right.

What did I learn?

I can't entirely rely on my own judgement to be objectively universal, so I need to actively collect player opinions.
I WILL let burnout kill projects if I give it the chance, so no more working on things out of order, get the current expansion done first.
I don't only need to know the destination, but also the journey to get there. So things will be planned out in detail from the start.

So here we are.

As you might know, Fragment's story has already been structured from start to finish, with dialogue writing for the very last mission starting a few months after 1.0.0 launch. This time, I know what I'm doing, and I know I've got something special with Fragment.

While New Beginnings was a massive improvement story-wise over anything Funland ever had, it is still very bland relative to what is to come. One thing that stands out is that Fragment 1.0.0 itself was barely planned ahead, even though Awakening was mostly mapped out by then. For example, Nick, James and Eric didn't have names until very late into development. The main plot of Eric betraying you and having to retrieve the AI was mostly the same, but the early draft of the ending was very different. In that version, you would bring the AI to Delta Station, where instead of Edward, it would be handed to a major character from Funland that would then never again show up in the story after that. The AI was also not even going to be V.H.I.W.A. back then, but instead "VexTech AI", who was this blatant ripoff of Ghost from Destiny, who was basically the player's voice in Funland.

Early mapping of the Valley of Azarax.

The "Sideways elevator" thing got moved to the stronghold, as the transition between the Factory and Array areas didn't end up being far enough to warrant it.

While New Beginnings did it's job of introducing players to the world of Fragment, Awakening was what was going to show if I could pull this off or not. It wasn't as afraid of taking risks, especially when it comes to character development. Thankfully, reception to Awakening was almost entirely positive, and I really am so glad about that. That's where the story and characters take their first steps into the real Fragment. Awakening showed me that Fragment can exist, and so it has to, I'll see to that.

Design map for the Technocrat's Guardian boss encounter room.

I actually had planned a 3 year anniversary event for Fragment back before 1.0.0 release. (For some reason???) It was going to be a dungeon that'd have a loot pool of community requested items, with the armor set's colors being the top requested colors that weren't obtainable from anything else yet. (The Transmutation system was planned out before release as well.)

For gameplay reasons, I only wanted to do this after 4.0.0, and pretty early on I knew that getting that far in 3 years would be completely impossible with Fragment's standard for quality, and at this point I know for sure that I'm never going to actually implement this. (At least not the dungeon.) So here's what I had planned for that.

Transition between 2nd, and 3rd would have been you flying the fighters over to the SkeleTech ship, with like a full on vehicle flying system, but doing all that for one traversal section would have been a waste anyway.

But after 4.0.0, I might end up doing some kind of anniversary event, though probably not a full dungeon just for that. Maybe in 3 more years...

Looking forward

Now, 2.2.0 is nearing completion, and I can't wait for you all to play through it and explore the new destination. Truth be told, I've been itching to start work on 3.0.0, but since I won't let myself multitask, it's been successfully giving me motivation to work on this one little by little. 3.0.0 onward is incredibly exciting for me, and I really can't wait for everyone to one day experience all that Fragment can and will be.

Whether you've been here since Funland, or joined with Fragment's release, or came along after Awakening, or even if you're reading this years in the future... Thank you for joining me on this journey. I know that even if no one played Fragment, I would probably still try to finish it for my own sake, but if you chose to give Fragment a chance, to see what it's going to be, that means a lot to me.

Now, it's about time I get back to work.

Let's see where this journey takes us.

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