I’ve formed my landscape. Settled my oceans. It’s taken so long to get here, but finally, we have life in the form of two tiny humans—Adam and Eve with their industrial homestead perched on a mountain of mud.I let my finger slip, and they’re immediately crushed by an L-shaped chunk of molten rock. Oops.Released over the new year, Bloks is an experiment from Dutch indie rascals Sokpop that builds a tiny god-game from the shape-dropping bones of Tetris. With each Tetronimo, you’re building up a brand new world—from the sizzling molten core to the oxygen that’ll hopefully fill the lungs of a new civilisation.Every shape is formed of its own element, with their own unique behaviours. Sometimes, when placed together, they’ll snap together into something new. Sand will turn to mud if it falls next to water, or glass if dropped next to a molten rock. Get a full line and it’ll pop, rewarding you with the most valuable element: DNA.DNA will let you grow birds, fish, and human beings. Keep those humans supplied with oxygen, and they’ll start building houses and factories of their own. The game’s store page suggests they may eventually be able to escape, but I could never keep the buggers alive for long.Even if I was a bit rubbish at playing god, I did enjoy bashing the primordial elements together a good deal. There’s an almost Minecraft-like sense of discovery to each new block type, calling back to the very first time you spilled a bucket of water on a lava spill and discovered obsidian at the bottom of some cave.Bloks is short. But like the best Sokpop games, it teases an idea that I can easily imagine being expanded on in a thousand directions. At $3/€3 over on Itch, I reckon it’s well worth a look.
