205. De-Block (?, Famicom, 1991)

De-Block is the next game in my quest to play every Famicom puzzle game, and it's a lot more intriguing than I thought it would be. What we have here is a mildly fascinating spin on Tetris. Instead of stacking blocks as they descend down a well, De-Block has you controlling a single magnetic block in the middle of the screen, and the other blocks can come in from any of the 4 cardinal directions. If they contact your black, they stick to it, but you can also just let them fly past if they aren't convenient.

The block are anywhere between 1 and 4 units in size, so there is a good amount of variation. Like many puzzle games, De-Block increases the level (which is just the speed) the more blocks are cleared. Instead of clearing blacks by building lines, you have to instead build an unbroken square around your center magnetic block. Thankfully, once you cone into contact with the blocks floating by, the color-code themselves depending on how many units away they are from the center, so it is visually very easy to see how your progress is coming.

The core of the game comes from the fact that a small square of 8 units is very easy to build, but also results in less points, while a larger square is much trickier to build, but will also clear any blocks inside of it. The challenge comes when you start going for these larger squares, though,as then you have a larger mess of blocks to pilot around the screen, so it's harder to maneuver and avoid blacks you don't want to add. It reminds me of a more polished version of one of my favorite Namco arcade games, Phozon.

In addition to the main game mode, there is also a modified Game B where you have to clear 25 squares on each speed level. Not terribly interesting, but it's there if you want a more traditional game structure. If there is one knock that I have against De-Block, it's that the title screen music is really good, but then the in-game music is much more boring.

4/5, a cool hybrid of Tetris and Phozon