Blockout

Blockout is a puzzle game that has a lot in common with Tetris and in some aspects, it’s a lot better than it. It this game you have to piece together tetrominoes to form blocks that need to have a minimum spread of 3x3.

In a way, Blockout Tetris but played in full manual mode. The game space is similar, only less tall, the pieces have the same shapes and like in the classic arcade game, they come at random. You also have the same goal, to get as many points as possible by creating blocks and then making them disappear.

The biggest difference here is that you choose exactly where you want the pieces to go instead of guiding them in the right direction. Moreover, the blocks you have to create need to be the same color and some of the tetrominoes come as a mixture of two tones.

Just like in Tetris, in Blockout it’s very easy to make a simple mistake that ultimately ends up costing you the entire game. One faulty move and you might not get the piece you need to clear a big portion of the screen.

It’s important to continuously make groups of blocks disappear because with each one gone, you get extra time on the timer. If the timer reaches zero, it’s game over. Since it’s almost impossible to match the pieces perfectly, one or two small tiles might end up lost and alone of the main grid. To remove those, Blockout provides a few helpful tiles that spawn only after you get a lot of points.

The concept and gameplay behind Blockout are super simple and super effective. It’s that kind of casual puzzle game that you end up wasting a lot of delightful time with.