There’s no shortage of puzzle games on the Switch so games need something new to standout. Storyblocks came with promises of an engaging story and alternating paths, so we were keen to pick It up. Sadly, the reality it somewhat less exciting.
The basic concept of Storyblocks is that you need to build paths
from one area to another. You are presented with sort of floating islands and
then need to use all the allotted path pieces to take you to another one. This
advances the story to the next section.
The puzzle part comes from the fact you need to use all your
allocated pieces before you can proceed. So, if you can connect from island to island
with ten tiles but have been given twelve then you need to think about the
shape you need to make. Some levels also have multiple routes you can go which
will give you different bits of the story to read. Unfortunately, the puzzling
isn’t particularly gripping.
The problem is that this is really all there is. The basic
premise of the game never changes or evolves and it’s pretty light in the first
place. There’re no special tiles and nothing really changes in terms of the
game relating to terrain or the type of route you take. Even some animation relating
to your character traveling around and facing the various challenges presented
in the story would have helped.
It’s also not helped by how difficult it is to place tiles
at times. Angles can be difficult to gauge and some kind of locking on feature
would have really been helpful. There’s also no touch screen support either, so
don’t expect to be placing things by hand.
Overall, Storyblocks: the King is a nice idea but it’s so
incredibly under cooked that it’s hard to get engaged with. There are so many things
that could and should have been done to improve the experience and what we have
seems like a tech demo rather than a full game. Hopefully, a more fleshed out
version of this concept will come later as there’s certainly some potential
here.
Overall 4/10
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