Intro

When I am worn out of blasting zombies to oblivion, I normally turn to Gameloft‘s Blokus to calm my mood.

Gameplay 9/10

Top Tip: At the beginning of a game, try to reach the middle first to take control of the board.

Blokus is a neat little board game where you try and place more of your tetris-like pieces on the board than your opponent, however, you can only place a piece diagonally to an existing piece, without any sides connecting. The computer calculates where you are able to go with the pieces you have and only allows you to select the blocks that can actually be placed on the board. Furthermore, it also shows you where on the board it can go. Although this may look like a spoil at first glance, it actually removes the frustration of trying out

This gameplay takes a bit to get used to, but when you get the hang of it, there is a lot of strategy involved in the game, which is great, for me anyway.

There are 4 game modes, however, the basic gameplay stays the same. There is ‘Classic 4’, ‘Classic 2’, ‘Duo’ and ‘Classic Team’. ‘Classic 4’ is where there are 4 other computer controlled players on the board, ‘Classic 2’ is the same but with 2 players on the board, ‘Duo’ is where you control 2 players on the board while the other 2 are computer controlled and ‘Classic Team’ is where you work together with another computer controlled  to get the most pieces on the board overall.

You can also participate in a tournament where you play all sorts of games against various difficulties of opponent and you have to win and sometimes complete a task to progress further into the tournament. This task could be placing all of your 5 brick pieces on the board or getting an overall block score of 70 or over. I found the tournament challenging and I had to try more than once to complete a task, this also helped improved my strategic skills on the board.

Lastly, there is multiplayer, local and online, which is great, but I would have liked a pass-to-play option though.

Overall the gameplay is fun and challenging with enough strategy to accommodate the hardcore gamer but simple enough to introduce beginners to the game.

Here is the 'Classic 2' mode in action.

Graphics 10/10

The graphics may be simple, but are extremely polished. Everything is devilishly simple yet extremely well executed. The gameplay is bright and colorful and overall the game ran splendid on my 3G.

Controls 9/10

It took a bit of time to get the hang of the navigation of blocks, but it soon became second nature to flip the block with a swipe of the finger and gently spin a block by moving the finger around the outside. Nonetheless, I did come across a few issues when accidentally accepting a block in its position but the more I played, the more I got used to the control scheme.

Sound 10/10

The music is uplifting and quirky, with a slight hint of retro. There is an extensive library of sound effects linked with everything you do and it really worked well.

Menus 10/10

The menus are clear and well presented. The options are also evry responsive and easy to navigate. Top marks.

Longevity 7/10

I was surprised at how Gameloft managed to make what could have been a simple 1-dimensional board game into a more fully fledged title. With local and online multiplayer, game modes, tournaments, Gameloft Live (which include trophies to collect and unlock-able items), Blokus is bursting with gameplay. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, it is the same gameplay, whether it is against someone across the world, or competing in a tournament, the gameplay is going to get repetitive after a while.

Cost 7/10

Blokus is $4.99/£2.99, which is a bit steep for a board game. Even though Blokus includes tons of different modes, tournaments and multiplayer, I can’t help thinking it is just wrapping the same gameplay in different patterns, and the same gameplay is bound to get boring after a while. Therefore, the price may not be the best.

Conclusion 66/70 – 4.5/5

Blokus is no doubt a polished game and is perfect for those who loved the board game. I would recommend trying out the flash version free online just to check out the gameplay, and see if it appeals, if it does then this would be a good purchase, however, if it is not your thing, then the iPhone version is nothing different.

Blokus on the App Store.

The award-wining abstract board game, Blokus has officially been licensed and ported to the iDevices by no other then Gameloft and is currently available in the App Store for just $4.99 (no iPad specific version just yet).

Noteworthy Features:

• Includes Classic, Duo and a color-blind version of the game.
• Real-time multiplayer (local and online).
• Interactive Tutorial and Tournament modes that help teach you how to play the game.

Major Complaints:

• Unresponsive/Unintuitive controls for rotating blocks (clockwise & counter-clockwise).
• Lacking a couple multiplayer features; no same device “pass and play” and no asynchronous local and/or online play mode.
• No iPad optimized version, or universal app offering just yet…

For those of you who haven’t heard of Blokus (don’t worry it’s news to me too) it’s a real-life board game released back in 2000, and since then it has won many awards, even catching some attention from Mattel, INC before making its way to the iPhone and iPod Touch.

It may not be as well know as Chess or Checkers, but it certainly has a vibrant and healthy fan-base, otherwise Gameloft, wouldnt have even bothered bringing it to the App Store.

Gameplay

The premise of the game is actually quite simple, yet as it unfolds it quickly becomes complex on a mind-boggling level.

The game board is a grid of 400 squares, with 20 rows and 20 columns. There’s 84 pieces, split between 4 different colors (red, yellow, blue, and green) meaning 21 of the same identical pieces  for each individual color. The pieces themselves are very much reminiscent of Tetris shapes and are comprised of one monomino, one domino, two trominoes/triominoes, fivetetrominoes, and 12 pentominoes.

The gameplay is a mix of survival and opponent prevention. The object is to place all 21 of your pieces on the board, which is easier said then done when up against skilled players who will be actively placing their pieces in ways that prevent you from being able to place any of your remaining pieces, cutting you off from the board so to speak, thus game-over for you.

In order to play a piece you must place them corner to corner on the board so that the piece you play is cornered up with another one of your pieces already on the board or on the corner of your starting location. Other then that your free to place whatever pieces you want in any order you feel like, as long as the piece you place connects to a coner of another piece.

When all players are blocked, or have no pieces left to place on the board the game is over and its time to calculate points.

Calculating Points:

• Each square which has been placed on the board counts as one point.
• A bonus of 15 points is awarded if all 21 pieces have been placed on the board.
• This bonus is increased to 20 points if the 21 pieces were placed on the board with the single square being placed last.

This package of Blokus comes stacked with the following variations:

• 4 players control one color each.
• 2 players control two colors each.
• 4 players play in teams.
• Blokus Duo™: There are only 2 colors, the board is smaller and the start position is in the middle of the board.

Gamers can play the aforementioned variations either as a single player against AI or multi player with real people, both locally (on Bluetooth & WiFi) or online with your Gameloft Live account.

Presentation

This is Gameloft after all, so you can expect a polished UI and an overall sharp presentation. I found the graphics, the art-style, the menu & game UI, the sound-effects and the music all fitting for the game of Blokus. The board and the action are scaled perfectly for the small screen of the iPhone and iPod Touch, although the larger screen real-estate of the iPad would be ideal for a board game like this.

Aside from a somewhat unintuitive Quick-Play menu that may be kind of confusing for players not familiar with the game of Blokus, there really is not much of anything to complain about here, but then again it’s just a board game so there’s not much to brag about either.

Controls

The controls work about as well as to be expected.

The 21 pieces that you need to play are laid-out coverflow style at the bottom of the screen, and you can easily select them, scroll thru them, and browse remaining pieces of your opponents at any time, since seeing all the pieces from each opponent is a big part of the overall strategy.To play a piece you simply tap on it and the piece appears on the board, waiting for you to place the piece where you want it. From there you can drag & drop, rotate and/or flip it as desired. Once you have a placement that is viable a green check will appear, just tap to confirm.

As you start placing pieces you will begin to see highlighted cells appearing on the board adjacent to open corners, designated possible locations where the next piece you play can be placed. Also, the highlight cells will dynamically change to indicate possible locations where the selected piece can be placed, which very greatly depending on the type of piece you select and weather or not there is enough room to place the piece in a given location. I found these highlights to be extremely helpful and much appreciated.

Price

As of this review the price is stacked up at a cool $4.99. It’s a real life licensed board game (an award wining board game at that)  so it should have been expected that the pricing of the game would come with a little extra baggage.

Score 4/5

This isn’t the first time Blokus has been virtualized, nor is it the first virtualized version to offer multiplayer. It’s a great port indeed, and Gameloft (the undisputed king of licensing and porting games to mobile platforms) gets props for miniaturizing the experience very well to fit the small screens of the iPhone and iPod Touch.

It also comes packed with several popular variations of the Blokus game and includes real-time multiplayer, both local and online. Although the multiplayer is lacking a couple of popular features (“pass and play” and asynchronous play), it’s still multiplayer nonetheless.

However, at the end of the day no matter how well the game has been miniaturized and ported, or no matter what features it’s packing, it’s still Blokus an abstract board game. Which means, this is only going to appeal to a niche demographic of board game enthusiasts and for you I give this game a glorious 4/5, seriously what are you waiting for? Hurry up and buy this game already!

For everyone else though (and please don’t take this the wrong way), those of you who are not too fond of putting on the “thinking cap” for long periods of time (which is fine I’m not too fond of it either), you might want to pass on this one or wait for it to come down to the $0.99 cent range.

Blokus on the App Store.

Well, Gameloft will sure be rolling out games this month. They have announced that they will be bringing 7 games to the iPad this month, all of which are based off the iPhone and iPod Touch games currently available on the App Store. Here’s the list:

1. Blokus
2. GT Racing: Motor Academy
3. NFL 2010
4. Chess Classics
5. Brain Challenge
6. Gangstar: West Coast Hustle
7. Real Tennis 2009

All of those games are currently available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but these iPad specific versions will have revamped graphics for sure and possibly even revamped controls. All of these iPad specific games announced should be out sometime early this month. As for the prices, I am sure they will vary from $4.99 to $9.99. Gameloft already has some iPad specific titles on the App Store such as:

• Brothers In Arms 2: Global Front HD
• Shrek Kart HD
• Modern Combat: Sandstorm HD

That’s only a few of Gameloft’s iPad specific titles, for more click here. Anyway, these 7 iPad specific titles announced should be out sometime early this month.