Blockie is a survival game about not being crushed. The game was created in around 8 hours as i didn't have anymore time on the sunday to work on ludum dare.
Controls: A = Left D = Right
Enjoy. Be sure to post your high scores in comments.
Very clean and simple to learn. However, I feel like there isn't a lot of strategy needed. Maybe implementing some type of ability that allows you to temporarily move over more blocks or even destroy some could add a strategic elements to it! The camera shake and feedback is awesome!
I found it a bit simple gameplay-wise, but very polished in terms of the art and the music/sfx. It's quite enjoyable to play, too!
As a minor idea; I felt that it was more likely that blocks appear near you? (which is why moving is encouraged) If so, it might be good to give the player a visual indication, maybe..?
In any case, the game looks really good for 48 hours, and I really liked the music. Good job!
@agecaf Thanks :). Yeah the blocks are weighted more towards the player to keep them moving and avoid getting stuck in big holes etc. Maybe some indication could work..
Interesting take on the theme! The mood is great and the entry polished. It would have been fun to see some combos activated when 3 colors lined up as we can mostly control which blocks will be pushed next (still very random). :smile: Well done!
Looks great, feels great, has a good art style, keeps up with the rythm. It feels like you were focused on this one game idea and polished it to the end. THe only thing was that the eyes on the main character felt a bit out of place (just a small problem for me).
Music is well done, also the mechanics are simple, which i like (doesn't make you read the manual). It is very polished, which is nice, but i find it a little bit too simple. A mechanic that lets you remove blocks could be very nice.. But the game is still very fun, and i enjoyed playing it. It seems as the blocks get placed randomly, i think there would have been more depth to the style of gameplay if they were added i a kind of pattern or according to some rules (for example adding a block to the place where the player stands). But overall very good game, and well polished!
Good job on the game! It has some great music and wonderful game feel. The art was simple but very pleasing and functional and the concept fits the theme well. My issue is that the game is somewhat luck based - you do have to position yourself in the most likely safe place but the block loading seems random so really it's up to the game how well you do. A good job overall.
@rob-white Yeah the blocks spawn based on a weight system so they actually are more likely to spawn near player etc. It could have been fun with patterns though.
@gamejmunk I originally had block removing but it was too easy to exploit so i removed it. The patterns would have been great though if i thought of that haha. Currently it already is more weighted to go near the player.
@stepan-shabalin Yeah i had limited time so went super simple and polished that. Yeah the character is something i wish i had more time to improve on it was abit uninteresting haha.
First off, it would have been nice to have arrow keys as an alternative.
Onto the actual meat of it. The idea of falling blocks filling a room is one I'm sure many people had, myself included. However, having the blocks rise up and removing the jump is a smart way of getting around a lot of the issues present with that idea.
In terms of polish I have mixed opinions. Having it suddenly start feels really awkward, a quick countdown might have helped. On the other hand, I like the visual effects for the blocks coming in and the background.
I do have a couple of issues with how information is presented to the player. Firstly, the blocks seem to come up randomly but with an inclination towards the player. I understand why this is important, to keep up flow and to make sure the game isn't completely unfair at times. However in practice it can be quite confusing and annoying, because it's a mechanic determined by the players actions which they don't completely understand. It raises questions such as "Are blocks spawning in a radius of me or right below me? Is it me or some other bias that's making towers form?" ect. Then there's the "move + survive = top score" which I missed at first because it's presented so subtly. This raises more questions, "Does moving back and forth rapidly increase my score? Do I need to move long distances for it to count?" All this is made stronger by the fact that the image up top shows a high score of ~8500 whilst I could only manage ~2500.
I have a couple of suggestions for how this could be helped. The most general point being that the rules need to be understandable by the player and more clearly explained; I think there needs to be a better balance of understandable generation and randomness. Assuming the gen algorithms are in a form that's understandable for a player, you could just explain this in text, though it's a very annoying and unclear method when overused so I wouldn't recommend walls of text. Another way to do this could be to have mechanics that clearly reward the player with score boosts. So for example, if moving back and forth does help the score go up, this could be presented to the player in a way that's easier to understand and see the effects from. Additionally, perhaps the area where the blocks spawn relative to the player (if that is a thing) could be represented visually.
So whilst some mechanics could be better presented, the game has a strong core along with some fairly strong visual polish.
Catchy tune! Got a max of 2,666. Would have been cool to do more actions other than move, like matching would be perfect in this, to stay alive longer. It would reward players who could match faster than the incoming blocks. or bombs to blow that you can collect to destroy sections of blocks, anything really that allows the player to interact in a more meaningful way. Otherwise interesting entry.
Simple, but well-polished. I particularly like the music. As some of the other reviews have noted, it'd be cool if it had a few more mechanics, like a way to get rid of some of the blocks and survive longer, but for 8 hours' work, this is extremely good. Well done!
Comments28
As a minor idea; I felt that it was more likely that blocks appear near you? (which is why moving is encouraged) If so, it might be good to give the player a visual indication, maybe..?
In any case, the game looks really good for 48 hours, and I really liked the music. Good job!
It seems as the blocks get placed randomly, i think there would have been more depth to the style of gameplay if they were added i a kind of pattern or according to some rules (for example adding a block to the place where the player stands). But overall very good game, and well polished!
Gave me a Lumines vibe.
Onto the actual meat of it. The idea of falling blocks filling a room is one I'm sure many people had, myself included. However, having the blocks rise up and removing the jump is a smart way of getting around a lot of the issues present with that idea.
In terms of polish I have mixed opinions. Having it suddenly start feels really awkward, a quick countdown might have helped. On the other hand, I like the visual effects for the blocks coming in and the background.
I do have a couple of issues with how information is presented to the player. Firstly, the blocks seem to come up randomly but with an inclination towards the player. I understand why this is important, to keep up flow and to make sure the game isn't completely unfair at times. However in practice it can be quite confusing and annoying, because it's a mechanic determined by the players actions which they don't completely understand. It raises questions such as "Are blocks spawning in a radius of me or right below me? Is it me or some other bias that's making towers form?" ect. Then there's the "move + survive = top score" which I missed at first because it's presented so subtly. This raises more questions, "Does moving back and forth rapidly increase my score? Do I need to move long distances for it to count?" All this is made stronger by the fact that the image up top shows a high score of ~8500 whilst I could only manage ~2500.
I have a couple of suggestions for how this could be helped. The most general point being that the rules need to be understandable by the player and more clearly explained; I think there needs to be a better balance of understandable generation and randomness. Assuming the gen algorithms are in a form that's understandable for a player, you could just explain this in text, though it's a very annoying and unclear method when overused so I wouldn't recommend walls of text. Another way to do this could be to have mechanics that clearly reward the player with score boosts. So for example, if moving back and forth does help the score go up, this could be presented to the player in a way that's easier to understand and see the effects from. Additionally, perhaps the area where the blocks spawn relative to the player (if that is a thing) could be represented visually.
So whilst some mechanics could be better presented, the game has a strong core along with some fairly strong visual polish.