Tetris: The Shia LaBeouf Edition - Dungeon Blocks Video Ryview

Dungeon Blocks, by Tom Fraser.

Watch the video here:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6znTDJxOMRE

Read the transcript below:

Hi Everybody!

It's Ryan from ryviews.com. Today I'm reviewing Dungeon Blocks, by Tom Fraser. Dungeon Blocks is an interesting Tetris clone that was coded in 3 days (according to the credits section of the game). It's an interesting spin on the genre, forcing the player to make void spaces between the falling pieces rather than complete rows (and in my opinion, a much better Tetris style game than the lamentable Quadroscope). It's a refreshing puzzle game and each level brings a new void space you have to make, keeping the game engrossing as you play it.

The controls were straightforward and easy. It played exactly as you'd expect a Tetris game to play. However, rather than dropping from the center every time, the pieces actually fall under a little wizard above the playing field. That meant there were more strategic options and if you closed off one side of the map you could still reach the other side. The game avoided quite a bit of unnecessary frustration by doing that.

The difficulty was very manageable. Perfecting the game would take quite a few tries, at least in my case, but you're able to progress through each level basically automatically, I couldn't find a way to fail a level, maybe if you actually scored 0. But in general, the challenges in each stage were just that: challenges. I think that's a wonderful way to make the game approachable but still rewarding. However, I do wonder why the stages weren't just all automatically available in that case. If you unlock them all simply by playing the one before it, I don't see any reason for you not to be able to skip around right off the bat.

As a puzzle game, it wasn't really very rewarding. It was a tremendously fun arcade style game, but the puzzle of creating the correct void spaces presented very little thought challenge. It was much more of a measure of dexterity. There was some required forethought and planning, but I would be hesitant to say this is a game that really delivers a puzzle atmosphere.

That being said, I would recommend this to any fans of Tetris, and anyone looking for a quick little fun game to occupy an hour. It's well worth your time.

For the scorecard, I'd give it a time value of 10, it's really short and fun the whole way through, money value of 10, originality of 9, since it's a tremendously clever Tetris clone, Ryplayability of 10, because of the easy controls, and fulfillment of 7, since the puzzle aspect was so easy. That gives a final score of 9.2. Really solid score, really solid game. I highly recommend it.

Category	Score
Time Value	10
Money Value	10
Originality	9
Ryplayability	10
Fulfillment	7
Final Score	9.2

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Until next time.