The Blockheads (video game)

The Blockheads
Developer(s) Majic Jungle Software; Android version ported by Noodlecake Studios
Composer(s) Kevin MacLeod
Platform(s) iOS, Android
Release iOS: January 15, 2013
Android: September 24, 2013
Genre(s) Adventure, survival
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer

The Blockheads is a survival sandbox independent video game created by Dave "majicDave" Frampton, an indie developer and owner of Majic Jungle Software, a studio based in New Zealand.

Gameplay

The Blockheads is a 2.5D survival game. Players control an avatar dubbed a "Blockhead", which can explore their surroundings, navigate the sky in a search for floating islands, navigate the entire world map, harvest materials to create buildings, structures, or create farms and make crafting benches that enable the Blockhead to avail of advanced options in the game.

Aggressive and non-aggressive creatures also exist on land, underground, and in bodies of water, including sharks, dodos, scorpions, dropbears, and fellow Blockheads.[1] The game features a PvP (player versus player) option that enables players to attack one another in Multiplayer mode.

Multiplayer can be accessed over WiFi internet, with worlds hosted over LAN, Game Center, or Cloud Servers. Cloud servers are indirectly created servers hosted by Linode. Since v1.7, servers will have to be paid for with In App Purchases[2].

The game can also be hosted via an app for Mac users, although availability of the world solely depends on the online status of the host.[3] The player can 'warp' a Blockhead through a portal, randomly generating a finite world of multiple sizes ranging from 1/16-16x that loops back to the portal. There is a choice between male or female, with various unique features such as different hairstyles or facial hair. There are no differences aside from the randomly generated name and appearance(which can both be changed).

The Blockhead has six statistics which can be accessed from the ingame mini-menu: Health, happiness, hunger, energy, and environment. The hunger and energy bar will constantly decrease, and the Blockhead must eat food to prevent the hunger bar from entirely depleting, which depletes the health bar. The energy bar, when depleted, will result in the Blockhead walking slowly and 'collapsing from exhaustion' (sleeping on the spot). This can be gradually filled by sleeping in a bed, on the ground, or can be filled instantly by consuming caffeinated items like coffee.

The player must craft items to progress in the game. Crafting takes a certain amount of time, but this waiting process can be bypassed by using time crystals, which can be gained by watching short video ads, mining them in caves, or through in-app purchases. Players can also purchase double-time, a feature speeding up crafting times by twice the speed (hence the name, double-time).

The player can choose to join online servers, and play with other players. They can be hosted in several ways. On an iOS device, the player can set up a Local Area Network LAN world. Game center can be used to play before iOS 10 since the application was disabled after that version. It has been confirmed that Game Center worlds will no longer be used as an option in v1.7.

Due to a new update to the game, players can now create single player worlds or servers with custom options, such as custom health values, how the world is generated, custom sun colors, and even customizing the items blockheads spawn with. In further updates, it has been confirmed there will be a new gamemode called "expert mode".

The Blockheads contains in-app purchases including the aforementioned double-time and time crystals, which can be used to craft items and do actions faster in the game. HD graphics used to be paid and added in hand drawn icons and an interface. However, prior to the 1.7 update, it is now free but it can be turned off in settings.[4]

Reception

Rickey Ainsworth of Toucharcade gives the game a rating of 5 stars, saying that it is another one of many two dimensional versions of Minecraft, although it features many twists and turns that make the game exciting.[5] Metacritic, based on 5 reviews and 7 ratings, gives the game a 4/5 score.[6]

Other

The Blockheads has an official website and a forum run on Discourse and previously vBulletin. Its community is large and widely approved by the community on both platforms. It has received over 10 million official downloads. It has been noted that the game has largely been overrun by script kiddies. A small portion of the playerbase has unfortunately been overtaken by roleplay, online dating, and sexual content.

References

  1. ↑ "Retrieved from the unofficial The Blockheads wiki. Can be noted as trustworthy and has largely been trusted".
  2. ↑ "Retrieved from official The Blockheads forums. Stated by MajicDave, or Dave Frampton".
  3. ↑ "Exploration, mining, crafting, and building sandbox game". The Blockheads. Retrieved 2016-09-20.
  4. ↑ "Retrieved from the official forums, which is noted as trustworthy due to the fact David Frampton, the creator, stated this fact himself".
  5. ↑ "The Blockheads Review". Toucharcade.com. Retrieved November 29, 2015.
  6. ↑ "The Blockheads for iPhone/iPad Reviews - Metacritic". Metacritic.com. Retrieved November 29, 2015.
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