A year ago, the puzzle game Blockage featured twenty levels of block-moving puzzle joy, but the game had a few rough edges. Now Guillhermo v.S. Heldt has come out with Blockage 2, and it's smoothed these over completely while preserving the essential brain-teasing fun. Plus, the game features a level editor where you can create your own puzzle and share it with the world. This also means a potential of infinite user-created puzzles in addition to the game's thirty levels. Let's get this blockage cleared!
You have a number of colored or grey blocks and a number of similarly color-coded targets. Naturally, all the targets must be filled. Also naturally, there's usually not an obvious way to do that. Colored blocks pass through each other, while grey blocks don't. Single use teleporters and painting spaces can help or hinder your progress.
Blockage 2 fixes the biggest user interface problem of the previous game by allowing pure keyboard controls. Cycle through blocks with [Q/E], and once a block is selected (it will be highlighted), move it with [A/D] (or the arrow keys). Hit [space] to solidify a block. [Z] will undo your last action, and you can keep hitting it all the way back to the beginning of the level if you want, although you should probably hit [R] to reset if that's your goal. Once you beat a level, [space] will quickly take you to the next. You can also use the mouse to select blocks or click on the controls in the lower right, but the keyboard is definitely an easier interface.
Analysis: In addition to this big improvement to the user interface, Blockage 2 gives more levels over all and a slightly higher level of challenge, especially in the latter half of the game. It's still not as nail-bitingly hard, nor does it have any many kinds of challenges, as the similar Blocks With Letters On series, but that series could actually take a few notes from this one. Particularly the undo button, which saves you from the agony of being close to solving an intricate puzzle and then accidentally hitting a button once too often and messing it all up. This doesn't take away from the legitimate challenge of the game, but it does make the challenge seem more fair, and ultimately that makes the game more fun. The soothing, ambient soundtrack and simple geometric art also help tone down the frustration potential.
The level editor enables you to make puzzles as easy or as fiendish as your mind can dream up, with all the tiles from the regular game available. Just remember you have to paint free space down first in order to put things into it. The ability to sort user-created levels by rating or date allows you to find the best out there or what's new since your last visit. All in all, Blockage 2 is a big improvement on an already fun concept.
Walkthrough Guide
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Blockage 2 Walkthrough
Thanks to James for his solutions to levels 24 and 25!
Posted by: joye | November 2, 2011 2:09 AM