My Time in Blockland

I was checking out the list of game titles that needed reviewing the other day when I saw Blockland. I had a quick glance at its Steam page and based on the description, in-game screenshots and trailer, the game appeared to be full of promise. Blockland is a sandbox simulator using, what are essentially, those special building blocks that everyone knows and loves (or hates, if you encounter them barefoot at 2am). The trailer shows some amazing looking worlds filled with people building together and doing all kinds of crazy things.

I installed the game and excitedly launched it, I wanted to learn to build and I wanted to learn right now! I started with the tutorial, it seemed like a good idea at the time. It takes you through several rooms and in each room you have a mission which allows you to learn a new skill to get to the next room. It started out simply enough; walk through here, jump over there, hey I have a Jetpack! So far, so good. Then began the building. Mouse clicks, several button clicks and a LOT of fiddling later I completed task one, put a brick into the wall. The next task was to build a staircase, it took what felt like forever. I just wanted to get out of tutorial hell and into the game!

Disheartened but ready to explore I decided to look at the other avenues the game has to offer. When you see the in-game menu it promises all kinds of fun. There are options for racing, deathmatches and lots of other cool sounding things. I jumped into a racing game and... was the only person there.  I jumped into a deathmatch and… was the only person there! This was still the case even after several minutes of waiting for someone else to pass by.

Assuming I was doing something wrong I found there was a “join a game” option which upon clicking made a whole host of servers come up. Amazing! Except it wasn't. Most are dead and the handful that showed any life had a handful of players at best. I finally found one with a whole 13 people in and clicked “join”. As the server was loading I could see a chat channel. As a long-standing World of Warcraft player I know that a good community can make or break games. A fun, vibrant and social environment can make your game-time more enjoyable and exciting. This server offered none of those things. The language and content I saw made me feel uncomfortable, I certainly wouldn’t want my kids to see it! This is made even more disappointing by the fact that the game lends itself to being attractive to the younger audience.

Having finally logged in, the game began. Trying not to judge the whole server by its most vocal members was difficult, but I wanted to give it a fair chance. Looking around the world I had landed in I could see a little utopia of colourful houses, games and other random things. I walked round exploring and trying to figure out how to interact with things, I never did manage it. I was too scared to ask for help from these people abusing each other in chat and the whole thing just sucked the fun out of it all. Upon trying to connect to different servers I faced a host of issues with disconnects and the like. I decided that maybe single player was the way to go, after all it is Christmas, maybe there just aren't people about right now? 

So I fired up the sandbox mode ready to build and this is where the last bit of fun drained right out of me. The building mechanics are the most difficult and cumbersome I have ever encountered. I play sandbox games all the time, it is something I can enjoy and often share with my family. I love seeing things come to life and although I expect a slight learning curve and sometimes quirky mechanics I can live with that. Alas it was not to be. After having spent far too much time building a simple wall, I caved in. The mechanics and build method are so counter-intuitive compared to other games I have played - and the poor community experience gave me little motivation to persevere.

I decided to investigate and explore the community side a little further. It seems that Blockland was once a huge thriving game, hosted on independent servers and full of life. The move onto Steam was supposed to breathe new life into the community but so far so fail for me. I checked out the Blockland forums to see if I could figure out where I was going wrong and I am still at a loss. One of the first posts I saw was about people getting disconnected from servers. The thread turned out to contain nothing but a page full of abuse and flaming. I know every game has its challenges, especially server based ones, but for me Blockland was a fail too far. 

I did not even feel like I could play it enough to review it properly. I hope I have just had a bad experience and I sincerely hope there is a community out there who can come back from this, it just won't have me in it. It is with a heavy heart that I am bidding Blockland farewell before I frustrate myself into oblivion with this clunky, messy game with its huge potential and promise - all sadly wasted. So long Blockland, it could have been a beautiful friendship.