Like other app-based games, from Among Us to Dress to Impress, a new game has gone viral on TikTok. Yet, this newcomer is much different from the other games. It causes you to use your brain.
Block Blast is an addictive puzzle game app that fuses vibrant visuals with strategic thinking and has captured the attention of U-High students of all ages and beyond. The challenge is simple yet exhilarating: drag and drop Tetris-like pieces onto a grid to form full rows or columns, clearing as many as possible before running out of space. Once a row or column is filled, it clears with bursts of color and points. Get a streak during your gameplay, and a pink heart appears by your score.
Junior Osvaldo Carretero, a Block Blast fan, started playing the game after seeing a slew of ads for it on YouTube.
“I like the addictiveness of it,” Osvaldo said. “I guess the sound effects and just the addictive nature of the game. Like, trying to get the best high score. I feel like since I’m a really competitive person, I feel like I’d really want to try to get like, oh, like the best score out of all my friends.”
As the game grows in popularity, it keeps updating. Sophomore Isabella Fuller noticed this when the game added a different version. Even with this feature, Isabella enjoys the original version of the game because of the strategy needed.
“I kind of like to think more strategically, like where to put the blocks, because unlike Tetris I don’t have a time limit,” she said. “I’m really bad at Tetris, but for some reason, I’m really good at Block Blast. It’s kind of luck-based. There’s some strategic elements to it, but it’s kind of addicting.”
The similarity to Tetris is exactly what caused senior Ava Cohen to start to play Block Blast. She uses it as a meditative tool rather than a way to compete among friends.
“I really like the game Tetris, and it seemed like a less-intense version,” Ava said. “It’s just like a fun game you can kind of do without thinking much. For me, it’s like a mindless relaxing thing, but I think other people do kind of compete for higher scores.”
Although described as “addictive,” Ava doesn’t view that as a compliment to the game or the game makers.
“I think Block Blast being considered ‘addictive’ is not good,” she said, “and is not a compliment to the game’s design. While the game is fun to play and kind of mindless, I think people’s belief that it is addictive is more indicative of how easy it is for people to get distracted and keep playing. In my opinion, a well-designed game doesn’t necessarily have to be addictive to keep people interested.”
