I’m on a mission to write about as many cool games as I can today, and the next one I want to share a short news article with you about is Blockflow, yet another game that has appeared in Steam Next Fest.
Blockflow is a new Tetris-inspired puzzle roguelite, and it’s the work of fatherly game developer Designer Dad Games, and the Steam Next Fest demo I just played is rather moreish (and now on my wishlist).
Blockflow leans heavily on Tetris, both gameplay-wise and visually. The colour palette and the blocks are Tetris-inspired, although there are some new shapes in there. I was also reminded of a clever little board game called Project L, another riff on Tetris that I’ve played quite a bit with my boys.
The aim of the game in Blockflow is to clear lines, just like Tetris, but after that things start to diverge from the norm. For starters, blocks don’t drop; you place them on the board. This fundamental shift is useful because you’re trying to make lines both vertically and horizontally, as you can see in the screenshots.
The removal of time pressure and the focus on placement allows you to start thinking along the new axis, and then, as you progress, you get special abilities that further mix things up. In fact, working out how to maximise your new upgrades is a challenge in and of itself.
With the caveat that I’ve only just discovered Blockflow, what I will say is that this is not a simple game, despite its straightforward Tetris-but-roguelite premise. It quickly became clear that I would have to think as far ahead as possible, because failure to consistently clear lines of blocks means you’ll lose your multiplier and you’ll earn far fewer points – and that, Dear Reader, is the heart of the game.
I think there’s a lot more to Blockflow, and as a Tetris fan, I’m really looking forward to returning to this one down the line, when it drops on Steam PC (Win) on October 28th.
