Block Jump–Calming and Infuriating.
Newgrounds just recently released a new and quirky puzzle game–it’s called Block Drop, and its one of the most infuriating and yet calming gaming games I’ve ever played. No, seriously–that’s not a contradiction in terms.
For those of you wondering how such a thing can be, it’s easy. Block Drop puts you in charge of this tiny little what looks like a waterdrop that has to hop from one block to the next. The blocks are on different levels, and spaced at different intervals. You, meanwhile, can only hop in the four cardinal directions–up, down, left and right, no diagonals, and only for one or two spaces.
The calming comes from the background music, a smooth neo-classical piano solo, and the backgrounds, a sky at dusk steadily fading into a night so full of stars that even country dwellers, who can normally see a panoply of stars in the night sky, might well be amazed.
The infuriating comes from the fact that you can only jump two spaces when holding the shift key, so if you go to make a two-block jump without holding your shift key, you’ll fall off the blocks. I did that several times and it was no less infuriating with each passing try, even though the worst that happened was that I fell in a pool of water.
So all things considered, Block Jump will make an excellent chill game when you’ve got a few minutes to spare, or when you’re having a really rough day. You can even just let the music go as a calm background to your day and barely notice the difference.