At the beginning of this project I assumed I would be using 3d blocks for the block layers. I wrote code to draw it in 3d and 2d very early on so that I could see the difference. As time went on though, I was able to make more and more improvements to the 2d path that wouldn't work very well in the 3d path. Eventually I decided to go exclusively with the 2d path because it looked better, the difference was likely just to get bigger over time, and the 2d version was actually faster.

NOTE: these are cropped shots of a cave with no objects in them so it's easier to see the block layers.

2D blocks (going with) - 800x434, 160KB

3D blocks (not going with) - 800x434, 164KB