''Blockout'' is a
puzzle video game
Puzzle video games make up a broad genre of video games that emphasize puzzle solving. The types of puzzles can test problem-solving skills, including logic, pattern recognition, sequence solving, spatial recognition, and word completion.
H ...
published in 1989 by
California Dreams
''California Dreams'' is an American teen sitcom that aired on NBC. It was part of the network's Saturday morning block, TNBC, premiering on September 12, 1992. Created by writers Brett Dewey and Ronald B. Solomon, and executive produced by P ...
. It was developed in
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
by Aleksander Ustaszewski
[ and Mirosław Zabłocki. American Technos published an arcade version. ''Blockout'' is an unlicensed, 3D version of '']Tetris
''Tetris'' (russian: link=no, Тетрис) is a puzzle video game created by Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. It has been published by several companies for multiple platforms, most prominently during a dispute over the appro ...
''.
Gameplay
The player's perspective is that of looking down into a three-dimensional rectangular pit. Polycube
upAll 8 one-sided tetracubes – if chirality is ignored, the bottom 2 in grey are considered the same, giving 7 free tetracubes in total
A puzzle involving arranging nine L tricubes into a 3×3 cube
A polycube is a solid figure formed by j ...
blocks of various shapes appear, one at a time, and fall slowly toward the bottom of the pit. The player can use three buttons to rotate the block around any of the three coordinate axes
A Cartesian coordinate system (, ) in a plane is a coordinate system that specifies each point uniquely by a pair of numerical coordinates, which are the signed distances to the point from two fixed perpendicular oriented lines, measured i ...
, and can also maneuver the block horizontally and vertically with a joystick. Once any part of a block comes to rest on the floor of the pit or in contact with an already-placed cube, the entire block freezes in place and can no longer be moved. The player can press a button on the joystick to quickly drop a block. Once a solid layer of cubes is formed with no gaps (a "face"), it disappears and all cubes above it drop toward the bottom of the pit to fill the space. Completing multiple faces with a single block awards higher scores, and the player earns a "Block Out" bonus for completely emptying the pit. A set number of faces must be completed in order to end each round.
As the game progresses, the blocks begin to drop faster, the dimensions of the pit change from round to round, and differently-shaped blocks begin to appear. A bonus stage is played after every fifth round, in which the player has 30 seconds to form as many faces as possible in a 2x2 pit. The game ends if the blocks stack up to the top of the pit, with the exception of the bonus stages; in the latter case, the stage ends immediately and the player advances to the next round.
The game allows head-to-head competition between two players, each of whom has their own pit and blocks. When one player completes a face, all the cubes in the opponent's pit are raised by one level. A player can win a round by either being the first to complete a set number of faces or by forcing their opponent's cubes to stack up to the top of the pit. The first player to win a set number of rounds may continue the game alone in single-player mode.
Ports
Apart from the other known console ports
A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as H ...
of ''Blockout'', there were also two for NES
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American ...
: the first is an official unreleased prototype developed in 1990 by Technos Japan Corp. under the name "Block Out", while the second is an unauthorized clone programmed by Hwang Shinwei and published by both himself and RCM Group in 1989/1990 (titled ''3D Block'').
''Blockout'' was ported to the Virtual Boy
The Virtual Boy is a 32-bit tabletop portable video game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. Released in 1995, it was marketed as the first console capable of displaying stereoscopic "3D" graphics. The player uses the console like ...
as ''3D Tetris'' (March 22, 1996), though the game suffers greatly from the lack of colors beyond red and black.
Reception
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' reviewed the game in an article about educational software
Educational software is a term used for any computer software which is made for an educational purpose. It encompasses different ranges from language learning software to classroom management software to reference software. The purpose of all t ...
for mathematics, writing that Blockout "doesn't pretend to be educational, but the skills required to master it are not unrelated to mathematics, particularly geometry
Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ...
."[L. R. Shannon]
No-Frills Mathematics Instruction
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', 23 January 1990 A 1993 study found evidence that playing Blockout improved the spatial visualization ability
Spatial visualization ability or visual-spatial ability is the ability to mentally manipulate 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional figures. It is typically measured with simple cognitive tests and is predictive of user performance with some kinds of ...
of 10- to 14-year-olds.
In Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed ''Block Out'' on their March 1, 1990 issue as being the tenth most-successful table arcade unit of the month.
'' Dragon'' gave the game's Atari Lynx version a perfect score. Robert A. Jung reviewed the Atari Lynx version of the game which was published to IGN. In his final verdict he wrote "This is a nice, addictive, no-nonsense strategy game. Without any patterns to memorize and several options to choose from, Blockout will keep its freshness for quite some time. If you thought Tetris was too simple, give this title a try." Scoring the game 8 out of 10.
''Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cu ...
'' gave the game an A, deeming it the #17 greatest game available in 1991.
Legacy
Around 2007[blockout II - Downloads](_blank)
on SourceForge
SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirroring ...
a modernized, authorized continuation/remake named ''Blockout II'' was released with a license from Kadon Enterprises, to use the trademark
A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from othe ...
ed ''Blockout'' name. The game is open-source and was ported
In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...
to many platforms the original wasn't available before, like Microsoft Windows, Ubuntu
Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...
, and the OpenPandora
The Pandora is an operating system, handheld game console and mobile personal computer originally released in 2010. It is designed to take advantage of existing free and open-source software and to be a target for homebrew development. It inclu ...
handheld
A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical ...
.
In 2021, a web browser-based version written in JavaScript and HTML5 was released. It is officially licensed to use the name ''Blockout''.
References
{{Tetris
1989 video games
Falling block puzzle games
Amiga games
Arcade video games
Apple IIGS games
Commodore 64 games
Sega Genesis games
Atari Lynx games
Cancelled Nintendo Entertainment System games
Atari ST games
DOS games
Classic Mac OS games
Linux games
Multiplayer and single-player video games
California Dreams (publishing label) games
Open-source video games
Video games developed in Poland