A cozy “chill” game that might need some time to thaw, at least on Switch.
Storyblocks: The King seems like a great idea. It’s a cozy/chill type of game that’s meant to be so easy and laid back that it would almost play itself, to the point where it’s serving the purpose of letting us relax and fade away into a story. It’s a story!
Maybe.
I couldn’t tell, because the game’s controls are incredibly difficult to get past and more frustrating than cozy.
Storyblocks is a (very) lite puzzle game that asks us to drop blocks across a map, eventually making a path to a goal that unlocks the next page in a storybook. Do I hit two mini-goals along the way, or go right for the goal? That’s somewhat up to us, depending on how many blocks we have left. And how we approach these solutions is supposed to affect things. There’s not much variety to the book’s story, though; it’s been difficult to find anything that really changes no matter what order or location I place the blocks. And the blocks and motions are repetitive — it’s just spin the board, drop a block, spin the board, drop three blocks, spin the board, reach the goal. MAYBE.
The game performs well on the console, the visuals are clean and fit the storybook theme, and I don’t notice any framerate issues that hamper gameplay. It seems like there should be a level of chill here. But those controls, and that repetitive design, make this frustrating and boring. The opposite of chill. The opposite of “I want to spend my time on this.”
And understanding that this is mostly aimed at kids that makes the issues stand out even more. Kids will not last long fumbling with a subpar control scheme.
Storyblocks: The King might be better on a library shelf and not on a console.
It originally appeared on The SideQuest Live for April 14, 2024. Images and Video courtesy AFIL Games. This review is based on an eShop code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher.
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