There are a handful of mobile games that I will always go back to. Fruit Ninja, Jetpack Joyride, Angry Birds Space — basically puzzle games. It’s not because I love them, but rather that I love to hate them. They’re simple little games, yet it pisses me off to no end when I f*ck up a level.
Enter Motley Blocks, what’s easily going to be my next iPhone game I’m going to rage at for days, and love every second of it.
Motley Blocks (iOS, Android)
Developer:
Publisher: Square Enix
Release: TBA
Every level sees an assortment of different colored blocks rotating around the screen and the goal is to clear the map of all the blocks by tracing a line over blocks of a certain color. Once you remove your finger, all the blocks that got hit will be cleared. The bigger your combo string is, the bigger the score you’ll earn.
So imagine you’re stringing together all the blue blocks. There is no limitation to how you can string the blocks, unless you hit a block that isn’t blue. Do that and your string is broken and you have to move on to the next set of blocks flying about.
Confused? Okay, imagine Fruit Ninja, but instead of all the fruits getting thrown up from the bottom of the screen, they’re rotating around the screen like satellites rotate around Earth. Now, instead of slicing the fruits, you need to connect all the bananas you can see on the screen. Fuck up and hit an apple or something, and your string gets broken. It’s like that, but with colored blocks, basically.
It sounds really simple, yet so very addicting. At best I was able to get a string of 40 blocks. When the developer played through the game, he strung together around 400 blocks and got a score of two million. Seeing the developer show off just made me want to play more and try to top him.
The challenge comes in with the time limit in place. You have to clear all the blocks before time runs out, and clearing all the blocks will reveal a hidden image in the background. You’ll also be able to create levels/challenges yourself, which can be shared with other players.
There’s going to be a free version of Motley Blocks, where only four colors will be available. The full version will include all the colors under the rainbow, plus even blocks with different textures.
Motley Blocks will be out soon for iPhone, iPad, Android devices, and with the possibility of Windows Phone 7 and PC versions too.
