Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: Super Cube Attack and Blockara
Return of the Blocks.
Super Cube Attack is a twin stick shooter created by Fancy Skeletons, aka Max Loy. Players will be participating in a no fuss shooter of cubes, where the only goal is to eliminate all foes and move on. That’s it.
As the lone cube, players will fight wave after wave of enemy cubes with a single weapon. There is no ammo to worry about, and the only pick-ups are extra lives that drop from heart cubes. The starting gun is a simple pea shooter with limited range, but enough fire power to get through the enemies in 3 or 4 shots.
Completing each wave will start the next, with enemies that may have differing moves than the last. There will be lasers, there will be bullets, but it will not matter; the cube must survive. Death ends the run, where the score will be tallied and progression to unlocking the next weapon will be revealed.
There is not much else to say about Super Cube Attack, and that is precisely the point of it. It is made to be picked up and played. You’re meant to let loose and shoot stuff and dodge bullets. You don’t need to play for long, and you don’t need a lot of skill. All you need is the will to fire at cubes. The music is catchy, the controls are snappy, and the gameplay is fun. If this sounds like a fun way to spend your spare time, then here it is.
Blockara is a competitive puzzle fighter created by Haunted Bees Productions, an indie studio based out of the United States. Players are participating in the World Alchemy Tournament, which only happens every 12,000 years, to crown the greatest alchemist around. Who will it be, and how do blocks factor in to any of this?
Players will select their favourite alchemist amongst the many colourful cast members. Then the fight mode will commence. Players will try to remove an entire column of the enemy’s elements to hit them and win the match. This happens by ‘launching’ the elements on the player’s side of the board at the enemy.
To launch, the player will need to shift the board left or right by its rows — or the entire board — to line up at least two of the same element in a column. Each element is weak to another, so launching fire at earth will cause it to be destroyed, while launching fire at water will do nothing. When ready, the cursor, moved with the arrow keys, will highlight which column will launch, and the player can fire when ready.
Things get intense when the player removes the ‘buffer zone’ of elements; as in the first three rows. The three rows closest to the player’s end need three of the same element to destroy a single block instead of two. That means that even more planning is required to ensure that the attack can occur. If players are skilled, they can try to line up four, five or even six blocks to increase the effects of their attack.
Blockara feels somewhat daunting at first, especially when considering that the opponent will be doing the exact same thing in an attempt to remove the blocks from the player’s board. It’s a constant back-and-forth of trying to line up a shot without the enemy seeing it and reacting by shifting their board around. Add in many different game modes and accessibility options, and you’ve got yourself a game that wants as many people to enjoy it as possible.
If you like puzzle games but need a bit more of a competitive edge to them, then this is the game for you.
