''Blocks That Matter'' is a 2D

puzzle-platform game A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...

developed by French independent studio Swing Swing Submarine. It was released on August 19, 2011 for Windows, Mac, Linux and Xbox 360.

Gameplay

The player takes the role of "Tetrobot", a robot which is able to collect blocks by hitting them from under (Mario reference) or drilling them, and can then construct shapes in a "puzzle mode" using four blocks at a time. ''Blocks That Matter'' heavily references the games ''

Minecraft ''Minecraft'' is a sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios. The game was created by Markus "Notch" Persson in the Java programming language. Following several early private testing versions, it was first made public in May 2009 before being ...

'' and ''

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 approp ...

'' through the main characters, in-game mechanics and concepts such as " Pajitnovian physics". The Tetrobot will also be playable as a character in the upcoming game '' UFHO2''. The game's name comes from special blocks hidden in the story mode levels. They are unusable blocks that initially appear in levels as treasure chests, which serve no purpose other than to unlock bonus levels. The blocks are direct references to famous blocks in games that inspired the developers, such as a ?-block from ''

Super Mario Bros. is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The successor to the 1983 arcade game ''Mario Bros.'' and the first game in the ''Super Mario'' series, it was first released in 1985 for th ...

'', an Aperture Science Weighted Companion Cube from ''

Portal Portal often refers to: * Portal (architecture), an opening in a wall of a building, gate or fortification, or the extremities (ends) of a tunnel Portal may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Gaming * ''Portal'' (series), two video games ...

'',

Rubik's Cube The Rubik's Cube is a Three-dimensional space, 3-D combination puzzle originally invented in 1974 by Hungarians, Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik t ...

, and a

die Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life. Die may also refer to: Games * Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers Manufacturing * Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semicondu ...

, hence the "blocks that matter".

Release

''Blocks That Matter'' was made available as a bonus during the Voxatron

Humble Indie Bundle Humble Bundle, Inc. is a digital storefront for video games, which grew out of its original offering of Humble Bundles, collections of games sold at a price determined by the purchaser and with a portion of the price going towards charity and t ...

along with '' The Binding of Isaac''. In June 2018 the game 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 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 ...

, an

ARM processor ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configured ...

-based Linux

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 ...

Reception

''Blocks That Matter'' received generally favourable reviews, with an aggregated score of 76 on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

. ''Blocks That Matter'' was the

Dream Build Play Dream Build Play (also known as Dream-Build-Play, Dream.Build.Play, and DreamBuildPlay) is an annual $75,000 Microsoft video game contest used to promote Microsoft XNA Game Studio and eventually Xbox LIVE Indie Games. It was announced in 2006, sta ...

2011 Challenge "Grand Prize" Winner, earning $40,000 and the opportunity for an

XBLA Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) is a digital video game download service available through the Xbox Games Store, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360. It focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independen ...

publishing contract.

References

External links

{{Commons category, Blocks That Matter
Official website
2011 video games Linux games MacOS games Puzzle-platform games Single-player video games Video games with Steam Workshop support Video games developed in France Windows games Xbox 360 games Xbox 360 Live Indie games