Sans Pantalones

Today, it was time to take a spin around Block Fortress, the combination of Minecraft and Tower Defense. I like Minecraft and building things, plus I like tower defense games. Since I’m not good at either of them a combination of the two seems right up my alley.

At first, Block Fortress seems incredibly simple, build a fortress using blocks and guns and defend it. You can build walls, towers, put up bait blocks and create whatever type of block defense system you like. Then you can add some machine guns, plasma guns, laser guns and all sorts of cool stuff. And once your defense is in the place, the second part of the game begins and it turns into a first person shooter with you blasting away at the hordes as they come to knock your playhouse down.

The concept is exceptionally cool and it’s very good fun to build your hideout to keep the enemy at bay. But when the enemy invades, things start to escalate pretty quickly. Here comes the onslaught and the sound of the machine guns fills the air. You have to mow the little devils down before they smash your power source and steal your resources. You have to take aim before they break through your walls or swarm you and take away all your health points. It can be a frantic few minutes let me assure you of that.

Then when the dust settles it’s time to rebuild, fortify and try again.

And what makes this interesting are the additional elements you have to contend with. Like Minecraft you have to get resources. Without them you can’t build walls. You need to make sure everything is powered or the guns won’t fire. As a player, you take damage and need to resupply your health by eating, which means you need to plant and tend to a farm.

And if that weren’t enough there is the element of night time. You have to be able to see the enemy in order to shoot him, which means you need lights and floodlights so your guns can track targets. If you don’t plan carefully, you’ll be fighting blind.

It’s quite an exciting mix and each wave brings new, more powerful characters. At first, the attackers can only smack at the walls. But then they get organized an a General gives them better strategy and more defense. Then comes attackers than can climb walls. And then attackers than can launch over walls. But then you counter with mortars, lasers, armor plating, bigger lights, better power plants, better building materials, heavier guns, faster guns.

Block Fortress is very well done and while still in the early stages, there is a lot to like about this game. The controls can be a little awkward, especially in the heat of battle. You’re pretty much thrown onto an island and expected to defend it without any sort of tutorial or explanation of the weapons. And there is no real sense of which weapons are the right ones to choose. Basically, the first few games are complete trial and error.

I have no doubt the updates will streamline and smooth out the edges. Overall this is a lot of fun and you can spend a lot of time playing your defense just right and spend some nail biting minutes wondering if you did it right.

For a mere $0.99, it’s hard to say no to this game. If you’re looking for a twist on Tower Defense or Minecraft I highly recommend you grab a copy.

And here are some gameplay videos that show off multiple levels and what it’s like to play Block Fortress at night.

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