Grade: D
Tetris-esque game that has you maneuvering blocks and bombs.
Stoneblade is like Tetris but not as fun as the classic. With increasing speed, you have blocks of various shapes, a golden sword, a stone sword, and bombs drop from the ceiling.
How does it work?
The Swords can blow up the blocks. There’s a golden sword that gives lots of points per block blown up. If you blow up all the blocks and none of the bombs, you get some big points towards your total.
The bombs, though, you need to segregate from the blocks because if the bombs blow up, you lose health. If you blow up too many bombs along with your blocks, then your health goes to nothing and game over. If you get five connected bombs, then the bombs blow up, and you instantly die. The stone blade, though, that’s good for blowing up the bombs without you losing as much health.
The instructions in the game aren’t helpful, and it took longer to understand how to play the game than it took actually to play. The only strategy suggestion I can make for Stoneblade is that the player puts the bombs on one side and the blocks on the other. This got me to my highest score.
Overall Impression
Stoneblade is a tiny game, and there’s not much to see here. Stoneblade wasn’t much fun for me, and I gave it a fair shot for about 20 minutes before calling it quits. I thought the mechanics felt a bit shallow, and the in-game instructions were poor. I went on to other things quickly.
If you are going to give Stoneblade a try, here’s the developer commentary where he goes through the strategies and gameplay.
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