Block'hood

In the criminally underrepresented genre of city-building games, Block’hood is a game that dares to be different. While most games in this genre use the same basic mechanics, Block’hood reimagines what a city is supposed to look like, giving us a look into a possible future, where cities sprawl vertically instead of horizontally.

These are not your typical cyberpunk-ish megacities, however. The cities in Block’hood are beautiful green ecosystems where each block has to cooperate with another to prosper. That said, can its emphasis on neighborhoods rather than massive cities appeal to fans of more traditional city-building sims? Let’s find out.

Tall Cities

As we mentioned earlier, the cities in Block’hood look like nothing we’ve ever seen before. While other construction sims like Cities Skylines or Sim City focus on the infrastructure of a city or their traffic, this game leans more towards being a building blocks simulator. The player will have access to over 200 different blocks to build their ideal cities. Each block has unique properties, and achieving a balance between them is key to achieve a sustainable ecosystem.

Some blocks generate power, while others house the residents of your city. If you leave blocks unattended for extended periods, they might decay, forcing you to keep constantly innovating your city to stay in tip-top shape. As you progressively expand, you’re left with increasingly complex cities that can look impressively gorgeous.

Cubed Aesthetics

One immediately defining attribute of Block’hood is its distinctive visual style. The game stands out from the other city builders thanks to its unique cities and nicely detailed art style. Your cubic creations look positively unique, and the inclusion of a day and night cycle really makes the visuals shine. Each cube has an impressive amount of detail inside: you’ll be able to see your town’s residents enjoying an afternoon in the park or the cubed trees swaying in the wind. Much like Minecraft, everything in Block’hood shares the same cubic aesthetic, making the game feel tidy and organized.

You can also give your cities themed-like appearances based on the cubes you build them with. That way, you can have dystopian factories or cyberpunk megacities in your game if you so desire. That’s mostly it for the good parts of Block’hood. Unfortunately, the game suffers from some small flaws: remnants from its time as an early access game.

The Bad Part of Town

Beyond its aesthetically pleasing exterior, Block’hood hides some oddities deep within the game’s code. An awkward story mode that feels disconnected from the game as a whole is but one of the most glaring flaws of Block’hood.

Another element that feels a bit half-baked is the game’s UI. Some buttons appear to be greyed out, perhaps to be unlocked as you make progress in your town. The thing is that they remain unselectable, no matter what you do, taking up some valuable space in your UI. Citizens and animals are also little more than decoration in the grand scheme of things. Sure, there are moods to indicate how happy your citizens are, but they feel like an arbitrary metric that holds no influence over their behavior. All things considered, the game is still quite enjoyable, and its uniqueness makes it a must-play for fans of the genre.

Pros

• Unique visual style
• Excellent and relaxing music
• Deep customization mechanics

Cons

• Messy interface
• Disorganized tutorials and shallow story mode
• Some performance issues