The Block Review

There seems to be a focus on intensity in gaming. Competitive shooters and battle arenas dominate the market, pushing for furious action and adrenaline-pumping gameplay. Don’t get me wrong though, I know there are plenty of alternative choices for more relaxed experiences, but when did you last play something that truly made you feel… at peace?

Sole developer Paul Schnepf — fresh off the heels of his previous “digital toy” release, The Ramp — is back with his latest offering, The Block. The Block is a minimalist city-builder, and when I say minimalist, I truly mean it. With no goals or progress to be made, and no budgets or other concerns to hinder your session, The Block allows for a few minutes of creative expression.

It's not particularly hard to make something like this, but it's still so satisfying

You select the palette size for your block, ranging from XS (extra small) to XL (extra large), and you’re presented with your canvas to create on. You’re given a tile to place your first piece. You can choose from a randomly generated selection of either buildings, pavements or tree groupings, and after you’ve placed your first piece, you can add another piece to each side of it, and then more pieces to the ones you’ve just placed, and so forth. You keep placing your tiles until your block is filled, after which you’re given a rotating view of your finished block. That’s it. You don’t unlock anything, you don’t get an achievement, you don’t gain anything, except for the experience you just had.

There are different “tile sets” of building styles you can get whenever you start a block, given to you at random, one with a bit of a Bavarian fantasy theme and one with a more olden Middle Eastern vibe. Graphically, they’re not the most varied of options, but they fit perfectly into the lo-fi grainy visual presentation of The Block. You won’t be seeing windows, doors, or many fancy bits of flair on the squares you place, but those aren’t really needed here. It hearkens back to my memories of simplistic LEGO buildings from my childhood. I couldn’t make anything fancy, but the true joy was in just building anything at all.

In a title that thrives on its simplicity, sometimes it pays off to keep it simple

The sound design similarly employs the minimalist approach that the rest of the game does, with a soundtrack of loose synthy chords and an almost hypnotic tone that blips in and out, never taking the forefront of the experience, but filling the spaces it needs to. Aside from the soundtrack, there are distant ambient noises of a dreamy town square, with muffled, indistinct voices and nondescript sound effects of people going about their daily lives. Each new block canvas opens with a satisfying clank of gears, as if you’re cranking open an old toy box to play with some antiquated miniatures.

The Block is really built for bite-size sessions. There isn’t enough here to keep you gripped for hours, and nor is it trying to hook you for that long. Instead, it lends itself to a five to ten-minute session every now and then when you need a space to clear your head, or you just want to fiddle with something of no consequence. It won’t be for everyone. Many might fail to see the point in a “game” with no scores or advancement, but as Paul Schnepf puts it, it’s not really a game, it’s a “digital toy”, like an elaborate fidget spinner. With a small price tag and clear scope of what it intends to be, The Block is a heartwarmingly simple, if not temporary, experience.