Block Blast! is the hot new mobile game that is topping the charts and proving to be incredibly popular, and I just lost almost an entire Saturday to it after picking it up for the first time.
After seeing a social post about the game I thought I’d give it a look, expecting to figure out what the game is, play it for a bit and then never return to it again. Then hours had passes as I tried to beat my high score, and my phone was warning me it was almost out of battery, a first since I got it at the start of this year.
Block Blast! is simple on paper. In a 8×8 grid, you get three Tetris blocks each turn and have to place them somewhere in the grid. If you fill a line vertically or horizontally, the line is destroyed, just like Tetris just with the ability to place blocks in any space they fit, and the possibility of creating vertical lines as well as horizontal. But crucially, you can’t rotate blocks, and you can’t see which three you’ll get next.
This means that you are not only trying to get lines to disappear and increase your score, but you also need to plan ahead for the upcoming turns, trying to create gaps for shapes that might show up. Sometimes luck is on your side and the blocks you get will fit into the shapes you’ve left, and sometimes you get unlucky and one rogue block can end a run that otherwise was looking good.
It’s a rare mix in puzzle games where there’s RNG that can genuinely end a run through no fault of your own, but more times than not you can see the mistakes that led to your run ending. An annoying end that you were powerless to do anything about only stokes the belief that the next one will be better, as the RNG will eventually turn in your favour. Then the ones where you make the mistake make you feel like a bit of an idiot, and drive you to do better.
But when you totally clear the grid of blocks, or pull off the one move with the three blocks you have that keeps your run going, it’s an incredible feeling that makes you feel like a genius. Then the tense moves you make when you are close to beating your high score really get your heart pumping.
Block Blast! is genuinely one of the most addictive games I’ve played in a long time, and there’s none of the typical mobile game tricks to keep you playing, such as limited energy or progression mechanics. It’s just a very simple idea, executed well, that can take hours off your life. It’s been a long time since I’ve found a mobile game like this, Threes genuinely might be the last one, but I’m glad I did. I just need to manage my time a little better.
