Guilhermo v.S. Heldt’s Blockage is much better than its name. It’s a puzzle game, pure and simple – not flashy, not very long. You guide coloured blocks to their homes, with the trick being the ability to ‘lock’ blocks in place to form helpful new platforms. 20 levels of that, and it’s over.

But it’s one of those games where the increasing complexity of the puzzles is so perfectly tuned – making your brain stretch and strain just a little bit each time to reach the solution – that I couldn’t leave it alone. At least until I got really stuck on the level pictured above.

I do like the way the blocks roll clunkily along, too. Makes you wish car wheels worked the same way. Play Blockage (Flash)

While I’m here…

The free games everyone’s talking about right now (which I might do a proper post for later):

  • E7 – atmospheric platform/physics thing that’s worth seeing, but not necessarily playing for all of its 20 very similar levels
  • Solipskier – which is just instantly enjoyable, has a rainbow trail like Bit.Trip Runner, and which I’ll probably review properly later
  • Give Up Robot – which reminds me that my dream is that, one day, developers will stop making games with bloody grappling hooks