Game Review: Storyblocks: The King

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC (Steam)

Seeing as we have a bit of down time here at A-to-J, we figured now was as time as any to take a look at some smaller indie titles that may have slipped past us this year. We recently took a look at a puzzle game called HoneyLand, and today we're going to be looking at another tile put out from the same publisher. Storyblocks: The King (Which I'm simply going to refer to as "Storyblocks" from now on.) is also a puzzle game, but this one has a twist that we'll get to in just a bit. It's out now on PC, Nintendo Switch, and both PlayStation consoles, and we're going to be taking a look at the Nintendo Switch version today. There's no real need for more intro here, so let's get right to the review.

Storyblocks technically doesn't have an actual plot to it, though it's one of your goals to create one over the course of the game. We still have to discuss the gameplay, but essentially all stages will either end in a continuation of the current story, or a branching path. Each branching path can either take the story into another direction, or end it prematurely. These choices are pretty much left up to the player, but you won't really know what story you're going to get until you reach the end of your current path. These variants are then collected into a sort of gallery, with there being dozens of possible stories to unlock. Getting them all requires going through each path, and taking each of the early story ends. Even though there are several versions of the game's story, they never really get all too deep in terms of plot. They mainly fall into light fantasy/fairy tale territory, and rarely go beyond the "enter cave, kill dragon, and get knighted by king" tropes. Even though the stories themselves are rather thin, I will admit that it's a neat premise that I don't think I've ever seen in any other game. I guess we'll just have to see if the gameplay keeps up this positive trend.

It was good while it lasted. While I praised the game for its unique take on plot, I'm afraid that's pretty much the only real positive I have to say regarding Storyblocks. The main gameplay loop revolves around placing two-tile road pieces onto a play field to connect your base block to one of the story path blocks. Each piece given to you must be used in play, so this means you can't have any left over. You can shift around pieces once you place them down, and this is something you'll have to do a lot since the camera isn't always on your side. Also, pieces can only touch on one side, there is no doubling back. Sounds simple enough, but the game honestly seems to fight you every step of the way.

I'd be a lot more forgiving to Storyblocks if it used simple top-down gameplay. Instead it goes for a 3/4 3D viewpoint that never shows you the whole field at once. Judging depth will often be difficult, and you'll most likely have a hard time seeing where the boundaries of the play field lie. Controls are also quite bad, and you'll more often than not pick up a piece you've already placed when you're trying to summon a new one. It all feels very cheap and broken, and made me not want to play the game more than I had to. I started out wanting to get all the possible story variants, but I couldn’t be bothered since the controls and camera make things frustrating at best, and nearly unplayable at worst.

Simply put, Storyblocks seems to be made to waste your time. Not only is there no real way to see how a particular path will take your story, but there is no indication as to which ones you've already completed. You're also forced to restart from the beginning each time you play. Unless you keep meticulous notes on your own, there's almost no way to get each of the game's story variations outside of playing the same handful of levels over and over again. Not only is that repetitive in and of itself, but there never is anything added to the core gameplay loop. Admittedly, I'm not sure what could've been added, but you'll be doing the same thing throughout the entire game with no additional mechanics. You'll have more pieces to lay down in each subsequent puzzle of course, but all that means is a more convoluted path to the end.

The lack of anything of note continues on when looking at Storyblocks' presentation. Each level exists in nothingness, and the camera zooms into weird places whenever you complete a stage. There's not even anything as simple as an animation of your character following the path you just made. The visuals are the very definition of bland, the music is just there, and even the menus seem uninspired. I guess I can say that the music wasn't particularly bad, but I bet it feels like it's all royalty free music grabbed from a library somewhere. I'd say the same for the visuals too, but I have to believe that the developers created something original here. There's no way a game with this sort of potential was slapped together as lazily as it seems to be. It's sad really. The core concept of creating a story through puzzle gameplay is a very unique one. If only more effort was put into everything else around it, maybe we'd be looking at a genre-defining game. Instead we have one that I feel has taken up far too much of my time already.

The only real saving grace of Storyblocks: The King is that it currently sits at the low price of $4.99. It's not a completely horrible experience, and there's probably someone out there with more patience for the bad camera and controls than me, but there's really no reason to pick this one up over just about anything else. As I said earlier, I did have some fun here, and was intrigued when I realized that the story changes based on how you play, but this is one that is best passed over. Maybe the developers can revisit this concept in the future in a better game, but as it stands here, I can't give it any sort of recommendation.

Check Out Storyblocks: The King on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/storyblocks-the-king-switch/

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Story: B
Gameplay: C
Graphics: C-
Music/Sound: C
Value: C

Overall: C

Pros:
+ The core concept of creating a story based on how you complete a series of puzzles stages is a great idea.
+ Even though I found it to be a bit boring, the gameplay loop of placing down long roads to the end goals isn't all that bad.
+ There are 18 story variations to unlock, and collecting them all can be pretty fun.
+ Can be picked up on a whim since it only costs a mere $4.99

Cons:
- The odd camera angle and extremely wonky controls make this one nearly impossible to play at times.
- Though nothing is wrong with the puzzle game mechanics, simply laying down a zigzagging road over and over again can get old fast.
- No new gameplay mechanics are introduced over the course of the game.
- Even though each story variation requires taking several branching paths, there's no in-game system that keeps track of which ones you've already completed.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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