Don’t underestimate this incredibly neat music game.
Beatblock is a brutal rhythmic wolf in sheep’s clothing. Idling through its tutorial, I honestly wasn’t expecting much. Where I’m used to tapping away at keys or gliding along a dance pad with my feet, all I needed for this game was my humble mouse. I slowly guide a paddle around a circular smiley in the centre of my screen, gobbling up tap notes and gently nudging along the path of hold notes while the occasional circle closes in around me, requiring a click to the beat.
I can’t help but feel like developer BubbleTabby was intentionally luring me into a false sense of security with its drip-feeding. «Not bad, but let’s face it—that was easy», the tutorial’s text taunted. «Time to put it all together.»
With half a dozen different note types to keep track of, Beatblock was suddenly a devilishly complex rhythm game wrapped up in simple Flash-era graphics. Keeping track of which notes required a mouse click and which ones didn’t, while making sure my paddle wasn’t veering too far off-course suddenly became a far more difficult task, without which I might have never ventured beyond this game’s tutorial level.
The game only continues to build from there, too.
