''Blocks That Matter'' is a 2D

puzzle-platform game A platformer (also called a platform game, and sometimes a jump 'n' run game) is a subgenre of action game in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are characterized by levels wi ...

developed by French independent studio Swing Swing Submarine. It was released on August 19, 2011 for Windows, Mac, Linux and Xbox 360. The game was inspired by one of the developer's earlier works, '' Tuper Tario Tros.''

Gameplay

The player takes the role of "Tetrobot", a robot which is able to collect blocks by hitting them from under (Mario reference) or drilling them, and can then construct shapes in a "puzzle mode" using four blocks at a time. ''Blocks That Matter'' heavily references the games ''

Minecraft ''Minecraft'' is a 2011 sandbox game developed and published by the Swedish video game developer Mojang Studios. Originally created by Markus Persson, Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java (programming language), Java programming language, the ...

'' and ''

Tetris ''Tetris'' () is a puzzle video game created in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov, a Soviet software engineer. In ''Tetris'', falling tetromino shapes must be neatly sorted into a pile; once a horizontal line of the game board is filled in, it disa ...

'' through the main characters, in-game mechanics and concepts such as " Pajitnovian physics". The game's name comes from special blocks hidden in the story mode levels. They are unusable blocks that initially appear in levels as treasure chests, which serve no purpose other than to unlock bonus levels. The blocks are direct references to famous blocks in games that inspired the developers, such as a ?-block from ''

Super Mario Bros. is a 1985 Platformer, platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It is the successor to the 1983 arcade game ''Mario Bros.'' and the first game in the ''Super Mario'' series. It was origi ...

'', an Aperture Science Weighted Companion Cube from ''

Portal Portal may refer to: Arts and entertainment Gaming * ''Portal'' (series), a series of video games developed by Valve ** ''Portal'' (video game), a 2007 video game, the first in the series ** '' Portal 2'', the 2011 sequel ** '' Portal Stori ...

'', Rubik's Cube, and a

die Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life. Die may also refer to: Games * Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers Manufacturing * Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semicondu ...

, hence the "blocks that matter".

Release

''Blocks That Matter'' was made available as a bonus during the Voxatron

Humble Indie Bundle Humble Bundle, Inc. is a digital storefront for video games, which grew out of its original offering of Humble Bundles, collections of games sold at a price determined by the purchaser and with a portion of the price going towards charity and ...

along with '' The Binding of Isaac''. In June 2018 the game was

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desig ...

to the

OpenPandora The Pandora is a handheld gaming computer developed and produced by OpenPandora, which is made up of former distributors and community members of the GP32 and GP2X handhelds. Originally released in 2010, it was designed to take advantage of exi ...

, an

ARM processor ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of RISC instruction set architectures (ISAs) for computer processors. Arm Holdings develops the ISAs and licen ...

-based Linux

handheld A mobile device or handheld device is a computer small enough to hold and operate in hand. Mobile devices are typically battery-powered and possess a flat-panel display and one or more built-in input devices, such as a touchscreen or keypad. Mod ...

Reception

''Blocks That Matter'' received generally favourable reviews, with an aggregated score of 76 on

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. ''Blocks That Matter'' was the

Dream Build Play Dream Build Play (also known as Dream-Build-Play, Dream.Build.Play, and DreamBuildPlay) is an annual $75,000 Microsoft video game contest used to promote Microsoft XNA Game Studio and eventually Xbox LIVE Indie Games. It was announced in 2006, sta ...

2011 Challenge "Grand Prize" Winner, earning $40,000 and the opportunity for an

XBLA Xbox Live Arcade (or XBLA) was a video game digital distribution service that was available for the Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles. It focused on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent game developers. Titles on the ser ...

publishing contract.

Legacy

The Tetrobot appears as a playable character in ''UFHO2'', ''

Cook, Serve, Delicious! ''Cook, Serve, Delicious!'' is a restaurant simulation video game released in 2012, developed and published by Vertigo Gaming. The player controls the menu and running of a restaurant, with in-game currency being awarded by correctly filling cust ...

'', and ''Bounty Battle''.

References

External links

Official website
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130520064125/http://www.swingswingsubmarine.com/games/blocks-that-matter/, date=2013-05-20 2011 video games Indie games Linux games MacOS games Puzzle-platformers Single-player video games Video games developed in France Video games with Steam Workshop support Windows games Xbox 360 games Xbox 360 Live Indie games Swing Swing Submarine games