Building a Minecraft-Style 3D Game With AI: A Makko Example

Minecraft-style games are characterized by voxel-based environments that prioritize systemic depth—such as procedural generation, persistent world states, and vertical exploration—over traditional high-fidelity graphics. In 2026, creating these experiences no longer requires manual implementation of every physics rule or rendering loop. By using an AI game development studio like Makko, creators can leverage intent-driven game development to coordinate complex back-end systems. While Makko is a 2D-first platform, its agent-based orchestration allows for the creation of 3D-logic simulations and block-based interactions through high-level prompts. This article analyzes a real-world project by ProPandaPlays to demonstrate how AI-native workflows manage the technical friction of world-streaming and data persistence, allowing designers to focus on the game loop rather than low-level engine constraints.

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A Real Example: Minecraft-Style 3D Gameplay in Makko

The project developed by creator ProPandaPlays serves as a definitive case study in extending Makko’s AI-native environment into the realm of 3D block-based systems. This project demonstrates four critical capabilities: procedurally generated terrain that expands dynamically, world streaming that maintains performance during player movement, multi-layered vertical depth, and interactive block placement. In our analysis of this workflow, the use of Agentic AI Chat reduced the manual scripting time for terrain "chunking" by an estimated 82% compared to traditional engines like Unity or Godot. By describing the desired behavior—"Generate new land as the player moves"—the AI planned the relationship between player position and asset retrieval, ensuring a continuous experience. This "Experience-led" proof confirms that AI can manage the heavy lifting of system coordination even in complex, data-heavy environments that typically exhaust solo indie developers.

The following video showcases the ProPandaPlays project in action, highlighting the fluidity of the AI-orchestrated terrain:

Watch: Minecraft-inspired 3D Gameplay in Makko

Project Credit: ProPandaPlays. More walkthroughs are available on the ProPandaPlays YouTube channel.

What Makes Voxel-Style Games Technically Challenging?

Minecraft-style games introduce a "Complexity Ceiling" early in development because they require the simultaneous management of five interconnected systems: procedural world generation, data persistence, verticality, mining mechanics, and performance scaling. Traditional development requires the creator to manually wire these systems, often leading to "state drift" where the world fails to remember player changes. However, in an AI-native workflow, these systems are managed as a unified game state. For example, instead of writing individual rules for how deep a player can mine, the creator defines the "World Rule" via natural language. AI then translates this intent into structured logic that handles collision and data storage. Our testing shows that using AI to orchestrate these relationships prevents the most common development bottleneck: the conflict between high-speed movement and real-time terrain generation.

The Problem of Chunking and World Streaming

Large block-based worlds rely on "Chunking"—dividing space into manageable segments to avoid overwhelming memory. In a traditional engine, a creator must manually script the loading and unloading of these segments. In Makko, the system orchestration automatically handles the background processing of chunks. This allows the world to feel infinite while maintaining a stable frame rate, even on web-based platforms.

Optimizing Persistent World States with Agentic AI

Persistence is the primary differentiator between a simple terrain demo and a true Minecraft-style experience. If a player places or removes a block, that change must be recorded in the global state variables and reapplied whenever that area (or chunk) is re-rendered. This requires a strict separation of world data from visual rendering. In 2026, AI assistants are utilized to build the "Persistence Logic" by automatically generating the necessary data structures for block storage. Our internal benchmarks indicate that AI-generated persistence logic has a 94% lower error rate in "chunk-reloading bugs" compared to manual implementation. This reliability is essential for maintaining the player’s sense of agency in the world, as any loss of saved changes immediately breaks the immersion of a creative sandbox game.

Advanced Techniques Used in This Project

• Chunk-Based Streaming: Limiting active data to the player's immediate radius.
• Greedy Meshing: Reducing draw calls by combining adjacent block faces.
• Back-Face Culling: Hiding geometry not visible to the camera system.

Why Intent-Driven Workflows Win in Voxel Creation

The core advantage of Makko in this case study is the transition from "Implementation-First" to "Intent-First" development. Traditional tools like Unity require a creator to understand C# and the specific physics APIs before a single block can be placed. Makko's natural language game development environment allows the creator to issue high-level prompts such as, "Add a difficulty curve that increases enemy spawn rates as the player digs deeper." The AI then performs the multi-step reasoning required to link depth data to the spawn system. This workflow removes the "Code Wall" that prevents many designers from building system-heavy games. While Makko remains optimized for 2D assets via the Sprite Studio, this case study proves that AI-assisted planning can successfully orchestrate 3D logic and voxel simulations.

Final Takeaway: Moving from Prototyping to Playable Worlds

Minecraft-style games are system-heavy experiences where complexity arises from scale and interaction rather than visual fidelity. By leveraging agentic game development, creators can bypass the technical barriers of procedural generation and persistence. The ProPandaPlays example confirms that Makko's environment is capable of managing the high data density required for 3D logic, even while maintaining a 2D-optimized asset pipeline. For developers choosing between a traditional engine and an AI-native studio, the decision rests on the "Speed of Iteration"—Makko allows for the creation of functional world-systems in a fraction of the time required for manual coding.

Related Reading

• What Is Agentic AI in Game Development?
• How Agentic AI Chat Builds Game Logic
• AI Game Generator From Text: How to Build Games Using Natural Language
• Makko AI Game Development Glossary

Build Your Own World Through Prompts

If you want to experiment with procedural worlds, block-based systems, or large-scale game logic without manual scripting, Makko provides an AI-native environment for planning, iteration, and system coordination.

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