Bloxi: The Word Game

[b]bloxi: the word game[/b] mixes wordsmithing with tetris really well. different colors mean different amounts of points, word length also adds to the score, but [b]the next block isn't shown[/b]. [b]4 game modes[/b] are included, they can be played on [b]3 difficulty levels[/b]. tooltips explain everything and so will I. medium is normal basically, words have to be at least 3 letters long. easy is the same but power-ups are awarded more generously, and words have to be at least 4 letters long on hard. in [u]zen mode[/u] [b]blocks don't fall unless you tell them to and each word can only be created once[/b], after that it gets removed from the dictionary for that run. [u]clear down mode[/u] wants you to get rid of gray letters by creating words with them. [u]daily challenge[/u] is the same, but with indestructible blocks and a random letter can't be used. and finally, [u]endless[/u] is what the name suggests, keep creating words while the speed keeps ramping up, and this is another mode where each word is only accepted once. [b]controls are rebindable[/b], mouse works in the menus, otherwise it's keyboard or controller. by default arrow/wasd to move, rotate and drop by one line, space/enter to drop to the bottom, z/x/c (or y/x/c for non-qwerty people) to use power-ups. esc pauses and shows found words and scoring info, ctrl brings up the settings, which is also accessible from the pause menu, of course. recently found words are shown on the right and you can view all of them with a click of a button. [b]cascades can and will create words[/b], a lot more than you'd expect and more often than you (well, more often than me anyway). I expected less spectacular gameplay and barely any words found, but turns out, [b]playing it like regular tetris on lower difficulties is good enough[/b], just plonk down blocks somewhere and hope for the best. zen mode can be more tactical with blocks only falling on your command, and [b]you'll have to think while playing on hard in any game mode[/b]. the end of level screen shows all your words once again and a bunch of other statistics. being good (or lucky) and creating word after word results in higher multipliers and random [b]power-ups[/b], which can also be bought with pearls, awarded for simply placing blocks. these bonuses also have tooltips while playing, but the corresponding hotkey is not shown. prices vary based on difficulty, the first helper is based on game mode. in zen and endless it adds a row of random letters to the bottom, hopefully creating a few words. in clear down and daily it drops overhanging blocks. the bomb destroys blocks around created words, and the last one shakes things up and fills gaps on the board. they all trigger after the current piece drops, and if you activate all of them at once, they'll pretty much clear the board. nice presentation, [b]really good music[/b], there are resolution options, windowed mode, separate volume settings, [b]screen shake slider[/b], and what I find to be a must in word games, [b]mid-level saving[/b]. can't keep multiple game modes on the go though. as an endless game it didn't keep me entertained for long, just tried everything once or twice, some sort of campaign or puzzle levels or whatever would be most welcome on top of all the randomness. also, tetris can be stressful enough on its own (for me anyway, even though I like to play sometimes), so getting anywhere on hard was out of the question. still, [b]it's done well, plays well, really fun stuff[/b].

Bloxi is a word building game with Tetris mechanics, which - while sounding very compelling in theory - unfortunately fails to create satisfying gameplay, at least for me. The mechanics are very straightforward: You are playing Tetris - blocks of various shapes rain down, and you have to rotate them to fit into gaps, trying to prevent your tower of from growing to the top of the screen. But in addition to regular Tetris, every square (the parts that each block consists of) also sports a letter. Squares are only removed from your tower if they form a word when read from left to right, or from top to bottom. While the combination of these two mechanics sounds quite interesting, it poses a difficult problem for game design: With 26 characters in our alphabet, there's a huge number of combinations even for words of just 4-6 letters - but only relatively few of those actually form proper words. So how do you ensure that the player can find enough valid words to keep their tower from growing quickly? One obvious solution is to let "useful" letters appears more often. Another is to remove more than just the squares that form the word, such as adjacent squares, at least under certain conditions. In addition to that, Bloxi also implements a pretty huge dictionary. But this, in turn, favors gameplay that I did not find satisfying. What I find particularly satisfying in word games, is creating long words out of individual letters. The ability to do this in Bloxi is rather limited, because: 1. You can only control the orientation of the 4 letters in the block that is currently falling down. This gives you much fewer options than, say, a game like Scrabble. Creating a long word would therefore require setting it up in multiple steps through the use of several blocks. 2. However, letters always fall down in groups, so whenever you find one that would help you set up a nice long word, then that letter is also accompanied by several others that usually won't fit. 3. Moreover, if you get a few blocks without any usable letters, the narrow space of the playing field means that you often have to abandon the long word you wanted to build, as you don't have much space elsewhere to place blocks that don't fit. 4. Contrary to Tetris, there is no look-ahead to the next block, which exacerbates the issues listed above. 5. Additionally, there is a plethora of obscure 3- or 4-letter words that you might accidentally form while trying to go for your long word (or while trying to move non-fitting blocks out of the way). Accidentally forming short words will very often either remove parts of the word you were trying to form, or trigger chain reactions that cause squares to fall down which were needed for that word. You can at least remove the 3-letter words from the dictionary by playing in hard mode, but then the first three issues in this list really start to hurt. Due to these factors, the game seems to favor a strategy of a) just mindlessly mixing vowels and consonants, and b) adhering to some basic rules of English phonotactics (e.g. it would be useful to form combinations like "tr", "br", or "bl", but not "tl"). Given the huge amount of valid short words, this practically guarantees to find valid combinations even if you didn't intend to or never heard those words before. And while doing so might be enjoyable for some players, it just feels cheap and unrewarding to me. When I come up with a rare long word that scores lots of points, then I feel like I accomplished something, and I like that. But when I just shotgun random letters all over the place in the hope that something sticks and forms an obscure short acronym, onomatopoeia, or foreign word that I wouldn't even consider valid after looking it up, then that just feels like I got undeservingly lucky. It doesn't create an engaging experience for me. It also doesn't help that the game never properly explains its mechanics. Sure, they aren't too complicated, and some of them are explained on the website. But I don't understand why there isn't a simple "Rules" button that clearly explains e.g. what the "Book" value means, how the multiplier works exactly, how score is calculated exactly, etc. I shouldn't neglect the things that this game does really well, though. It seems that the developers do care a lot about the user experience. The game offers several modes of play, including a "zen" mode where blocks do not fall by themselves, giving you as much time for placing them as you want. It's also great that the game lets you rebind keys - a functionality that many indie developers sadly neglect, despite its importance for players who are left-handed, disabled, use foreign keyboards, or simply have their muscle memory trained to something else than the very non-ergonomically placed WASD. Taking everything into account, I unfortunately cannot recommend Bloxi. Despite loving word games as well as Tetris, I find this combination just not very enjoyable to play. That said, I hope I explained my reasons well enough to help you make your own decision. My opinions are certainly not the only valid ones, and the game is quite cheap, so you wouldn't lose much even if you end up not playing it a lot.

Je joue sur Linux. Version Linux : excellente. [h1]Le jeu[/h1] Bloxi se présente comme un tetris, mais les blocs ne disparaissent que quand on forme des mots. On a plusieurs modes de jeu. Dans certains il faut faire disparaître tous les blocs qui sont là au départ, dans d'autres on peut juste jouer à l'infini et tenter d'obtenir le meilleur score possible. Il y a plusieurs niveaux de difficulté. Je n'ai pas noté de grosse différence entre le mode facile et le mode medium, qui acceptent tous les deux des mots de 3 lettres. Le mode difficile n'accepte que des mots de 4 lettres ou plus, ce qui le rends nettement plus dur. Graphiquement, c'est correct et la musique électro est plutôt agréable. Le jeu propose de sauver en cours de partie pour reprendre plus tard, on peut aussi regarder à tout moment les mots déjà fait dans le menu pause : ça peut être nécessaire dans certains modes qui n'acceptent chaque mot qu'une seule fois :). Le problème majeur du jeu, c'est l'aléatoire. D'une part, si le jeu décide de nous donner des blocs qu'on ne peut pas utiliser, on peut rapidement se retrouver bloqué. Les powerups peuvent aider à débloquer, en ajoutant des blocs en bas de la grille, ou bien en faisant exploser quelques blocs autour de chaque mot complété. D'autre part, des mots relativement obscurs vont souvent se retrouver complété (surtout en mode facile/medium avec les mots de 3 lettres) et peuvent complètement anéantir les mots qu'on planifiait de faire. C'est à double tranchant, ça peut aussi sauver quand la grille se remplit trop vite. J'ai souvent eu l'impression de gagner un peu au hasard en mode facile, juste en jouant à tetris, sans me préoccuper des lettres. Tandis qu'en mode difficile, l'autre problème se présente, le jeu nous donne uniquement des blocs de voyelles où de consonnes inutilisables. Mon vocabulaire en anglais est évidemment plus limité qu'une personne le parlant nativement, mais j'ai quand même eu l'impression de voir une quantité de mots obscurs assez importante. [h1]Rejouabilité, achievements[/h1] Il y a des achievements pour tous les modes de jeu, dans toutes les difficultés. Un peu de timing pour tout faire disparaître rapidement dans les modes concernés, et des scores à atteindre dans d'autre. Globalement, ce n'est pas trop difficile. Le seul qui m'a proposé un peu de challenge est le endless en hard, suivant le RNG on peut se retrouver sans mots à faire. A noter que les achievements medium semblent se débloquer au lancement du jeu si on les a déjà obtenus en facile. Je ne suis pas certain exactement des conditions, mais j'ai eu le cas pour un ou deux d'entre eux. [h1]En bref[/h1] Si en théorie, le concept est intéressant, dans la pratique on n'arrive pas vraiment à former les mots qu'on veut, et les blocs disparaissent souvent avec des mots obscurs. [h1]GNU/Linux[/h1] Je n'ai rencontré aucun problème avec le jeu depuis que les quelques problèmes suivant la release ont été corrigés. OS: Linux Mint 21, MATE edition. Hardware : 5950x, Nvidia 3080Ti, 64GB ram. Screens : Dualscreen, 1x 4K & 1x 1920x1200, un seul screen X.

This game is a blast! I really enjoy Tetris and word games, and this game brought them together in one fun and engaging package! The different game modes help keep things fresh. I especially like the Daily Challenge, which certainly makes the game more challenging but certainly mixes things up. I would highly recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a unique and exciting game that challenges the mind.

Bloxi is a game that has an interesting premise, but then it doesn't quite work, which is why I consider this review to be "neutral". The problem lies in that by merging tetris + words the result is difficult to put words together in a conscious way, because of the limitations of letters, tetris pieces and the time we have, in the end I feel that you end up playing tetris in a traditional way, and as the dictionary is super wide, the words end up putting together by themselves by inertia + luck. - Apart from that, the technical execution is good, the game is "nice", it looks good and it's quite cheap. To the devs I would say don't give up and keep trying, the quality was there.

Really love this game! Very relaxing and fun, but has the ability to suck you in keep you playing for hours. The Zen mode is a great way to get up to speed and understand the gameplay while you build up your skills and vocab. I've never seen anything quite like this game, it should appeal to many different age levels and to any who love word games. Highly recommended!

Excellent game! Great game if you like word games and like to increase your vocabulary. It's a great combo of words and shapes. Love that there are different modes to add variety. The zen mode is very relaxing, but I also appreciate the daily challenge because it is different every day. The design of the game is intuitive and looks professional.

Bloxi is a must play if you like word games! Love the power ups and different game play modes. Learned a lot of new words while trying to beat my top score! The daily challenge mode is an awesome way to keep the game fresh. Awesome graphics and and sound effects!

GREAT GAME! The concept is super simple and fun to play. Theres a few different game modes and difficulty modes which im great for since i suck at most word games haha. They also got a Daily Challenge mode which is cool, keeps things fresh and unique by removing one letter from gameplay. If you like Tetris and scrabble (or any word game really) Id definitely recommend it!

Bloxi is a Tetris style game in which you complete words instead of rows to clear blocks. You also have some powerups you can use to help you along. It's an interesting concept. I'd recommend it for those that like word games. It could benefit from a brief tutorial.