Review: QuickBlock
Score:
59%
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At first glance, there doesn't seem to be much to Quickblock, but it's maddeningly addictive, even though the game is quite a 'slow burn'. The time from the initial starting point to the moment it gets frenzied needs to be tightened up or somehow bypassed, but other than that this is a game that makes good use of the touch-screen – and it's freeware to boot!
By Polish company Binary Core, this is an endurance game where the goal is to keep your orange block alive as long as possible. You do this by moving it around the screen (using the stylus) ensuring that the green blocks that slide and bounce around the screen never come into contact with it. If they do – game over.
With just one green block on the screen to start with, that might seem quite simple. But as the game progresses, the major green block leaves a trail of smaller green blocks behind it, and some of them are pretty fast around the screen and bouncing off the walls at the edge. You'll be juggling your orange blob into gaps that are about to open up as you progress in the game.
Help is occasionally at hand, as a small bomb is sometimes disgorged – you can push this block and, if it hits one of the smaller green blocks, then both disappearoff the screen and this gives you a little bit more room to work with.
There's no complicated scoring system at work here, it's a simple time measurement – the longer you last, the better you obviously are. Simple and straightforward, Quickblock is a nice little distraction.
But if I'm honest, it could be a lot more. There is the occasional slowdown in the game, especially when green blocks are 'birthed' under the larger parent block, and the dialog screens (especially the dialog box giving you your score) are little more than plain text on top of the gameplay area.
While there may be a very nice game mechanic at work here, at least some time needs to be spent both on the presentation of the application to the end user and how they are rewarded.
Right now, Quickblock is a curiosity – one that I'm taking perverse pleasure in, but a curiosity nonetheless. If the developers were to put a bit of 'spit and polish' into the graphics and UI of the game, sort out the problem of the game slowing down, and (perhaps) add in a score system that is more than just “time survived” - maybe power dots on the screen you need to collect? - then Binary Core would have an addictive little arcade title for S60 5th Edition.
As it stands, this shows promise, but that's about all.
-- Ewan Spence, May 2009.
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at