Block Party
- Selwyn Ward
- Apr 15
- 2 min read
There's a round in PD-Verlag's excellent game Pictures that uses just nine coloured cubes to convey a picture. If, like us, you're amazed what you can do with just nine cubes, imagine what you might achieve with 20 times that number, and with 11 different colours at your disposal. Naysayers will doubtless protest that 'less is more' but if less is more, think how much more more is!
Like that round in Pictures, Big Potato's Block Party is a game where players are using blocks to communicate to others. It's designed by Ed Naujokas. In the competitive version of the rules, for 3-6 players, one player each round will be the guesser and the other players will use blocks (wooden cubes) to communicate one of the items on their Building Card. From our plays at Board's Eye View, we found that most players instinctively use the blocks to build vertically but it's often easier to use the blocks to create a horizontal picture, and there's no requirement for the blocks to be connected. In the game shown in our Board's Eye View 360, the blue player has gone vertical to convey 'traffic lights' but the pink player has laid out their blocks in an unconnected pattern to represent a 'clown'. The builder and guesser both score a point for a correct guess, and the builder can earn themselves a bonus point if their correctly guessed build also satisfies the requirements of the Challenge Card revealed for the round. The Challenge Card might typically credit the builder who has used the most blocks or the most colours. The builders all have a 'steal' token: if the guesser is wrong, another of the builders can flip their 'steal' token to guess at an opponent's build.
Some of the items on the Building Cards are easy to convey through blocks but you'll find there are one or two that are oddly specific and so extraordinarily challenging to build. How, for example, do you use blocks to communicate 'soy sauce'? Nevertheless, Block Party is a fun party game - at its interactive best with five or six players. With a time limit of just 30-60 seconds per round, it's a pacy game that won't overstay its welcome; tho' you'll need a smartphone to hand to use as a timer as there's none supplied in the box.
Flip the scoreboard and you can play Block Party as a cooperative game for two players. In this mode, players are trying to guess each other's builds. You lose a 'life' for every wrong guess, and for successful guesses you progress to the next level, which will determine the time limit for the round and the number of blocks players can use, tho' progress between levels can also earn you extra lives. In this cooperative game the players have three 'steal' tokens between them, and these are used to request a one-word hint from the other player. From our plays at Board's Eye View you'd be wise to save these for the later levels, where players are strictly limited on the number of blocks they can use: at level 10, you have to manage with just three blocks! Still think less is more?
(Review by Selwyn Ward)
