Blockman Gets

Blockman Gets is a game from Jayenkay at AGameAWeek.com
I found this at RetroRemakes.com and thought it was a fun game to play but the highscore list didn't seem very popular!  Hopefully with this post, it can grow in popularity a little.

At first the game looks very familiar, but after just a couple of minutes play you'll find it's nothing like what you think it is.

The game appears to be a very simple clone of Pacman but without most of the game being there.  There are no ghosts and without ghosts, what's the point of Pacman?
Very quickly you realise that this game isn't Pacman at all.

In this game, the title character Blockman must navigate the maze without ever crossing his own path.  Once you've eaten one of the pellets you aren't allowed to then stand in the same spot.

Basically, not eating will kill the character!

In order to complete each level, you are given a set number of pellets to eat, which slowly grows with each passing level.  As you eat, the target reduces and then once you've reached it, you can stop eating to progress to the next level, by counter-intuitively not eating and crossing your own path.

It's a strange new dimension to the game which adds a lot to the gameplay, even though so much more is obviously missing from it.

It's a testament to the game that it can still be fun without including the very thing that made Pacman such a good game.  The ghosts are gone and yet it really doesn't matter at all.  The game plays just as well without them.

To add an extra dimension, the author of the game has decided to add Boulders to the maze.  The boulders will block your path, but can be moved if the player slams into a wall!  Hitting a wall to the left will cause the boulders to all roll to the left, and so on.  You are basically given the ability to shift the maze around, by rearranging the position of the boulders.

As well as the boulders, as you play you can open up small Badges on the titlescreen.  Some of these will give the player different playmodes, which can be entered by hitting a key on the keyboard.  My favourite of these is Path Mode, which generates a random path on the maze that you must try to follow from start to finish, all in one go, without getting blocked by the boulder at the end.

It's a fun mode that could even have made a great game all on it's own.  As an addition to an already fun game it makes things that much better, and keeps you thinking a little bit more.

All in all, I think this is a fantastic little game, and everyone should play it!

The game is available from RetroRemakes, or at AGameAWeek.