Block'd (Part 2)

Here's a more detailed follow-up on my original Block'd post with some practical advice for how you can get scores over 1,000,000 or so ('Marathon' mode). In order to get to a very high score (e.g. my high score is 100,410,143) you will need to learn to control boredom - above about level 40 or so you have effectively beaten the game and the rest is just rote play.
(My explanation of going so far is that I was interested to see if the high score would 'roll-over' correctly to 7 digits. My particular game - on my old Nokia phone - has some other glitches where it can screw up if you go over level 128, so there was *some* reason to believe that other issues may arise:-) )

As mentioned in the original post, the key strategy is to try and get the maximum points every 4th and 5th levels so you can maximize the number of 'wilds' that you have. Then, use these judiciously over the next few levels so that you have some available for the next big level.

So minimizing the overuse of 'wilds' can pay dividends. A few simple situations and how to handle them follow. These will probably only make sense if you either play the game, or have read the earlier post! And to use a chess analogy - this is kind of like learning the endgame positions so you can recognize how to win them, and which ones to avoid.

First, a simple case (see below). To clear this without losing lives you might think you should put a wild on the top right (red) block (to clear it and the yellow), then place a wild on the top left (red) block to clear the rest. However this has a simpler solution...just place a wild on the middle blue block and clear the bottom row, and then you can clear the two reds as they will be side by side.

Now that you've seen the general approach, here's a quiz. In all cases, how do you place the minimum number of 'wilds' in order to clear the level without losing lives.

1.      

2.     

3.    

Answers:
1. Just need 1 wild (on the white)
2. Just need 1 wild (on the bottom white)
3. Need 2 wilds (e.g. one on the right hand red, then one on the white)

And what you will have seen by now, is that you don't want to get a very simple end position like:

Since you need 2 'wilds' to clear this. Don't forget, you can place them both before clicking to clear. (e.g. place a wild on each of the green blocks then click to clear).

I probably won't do any more posts on Block'd, so my knowledge of the 'middlegame' strategies for 'Marathon' mode, as well as how to get high scores on the 'Speed' mode will probably be forever lost.

Block'd (Part 1)

Where to start? After the recent amazing games at the worlds (plus the huge timing scandal for the Marathon players) it has probably become the number one talked about game on the web!

Or not.

I found this game on my now almost antique Nokia 2720 (which has v1.3.2 of Block'd). It's challenging to play and I'm going to try and give a short overview - then encourage you to buy my old phone so that you can play it!

My version came out in 2008 and was from EA. I see that they now disavow any knowledge of the game (their 'Answer HQ' here). But there does seem to be a site where you can download it (http://java.mob.org/game/blockd.html) though I have no idea if it's a safe/valid/etc site.

There are two 'modes' that you can play: Speed and Marathon. I'll talk about Marathon mode here and possibly (if there's a huge response) continue on to Speed mode later.

Here's a screen shot of a typical screen (though at a high level). You have blocks of different colours (the game starts with just 3 colours, and works up to 6). If you click on a block that is touching 1 or more other blocks with the same colour, then you remove all 'n' blocks and get a score of n**2. When you no longer have any cases of 2 or more blocks of the same colour touching you then lose a number of 'lives' equal to the number of blocks remaining. If you get rid of all blocks on a level you get a bonus of 1000*(level) points (i.e. 5000 points for level 5).

The last thing to talk about is the 'Wild' blocks. You start with 3 and can work up to 9 (like above) as you get one for each 10,000 points. When you place a 'wild' block it joins the block you place it on with the others around it and allows you to build a large connected area with different colours. This is important because if you clear 3 areas of 5 blocks each (for example) you will get 3*(5*5)=75 points. If you clear 1 area of 15 blocks though, you will get 1*(15*15)=225 points. So it pays to develop large areas and then clear them!

I will modestly claim the World Record Block'd Marathon score (for my particular version of course, and if necessary, restricted to areas not including others who have a higher score). And the key tactics?

• In the first 5 levels, work up to getting 9 wild blocks. Specifically, on levels 4 and 5, use the 'lightning' and 'multiplier' blocks (oh yeah, I forgot to mention them...lightning extends the number of blocks by 1 in each direction around the base area of blocks, and the multiplier multiplies your score by whatever value it has).and wild blocks to get a big score. See also this totally unrelated video by IanStig.
• You shouldn't use wild blocks on levels 1-3 unless you need one to, say, finish the level or avoid a big penalty. On the early levels it's usually more important to keep the wild blocks for use on levels 5, 10, 15, etc (the levels where you also get 3 lightning and 3 multipliers)
• The most difficult part to get through is probably around levels 25-30. Once you get past that you are getting 30,000+ points per level completed, which gets you 3 new wild blocks
• Work on those fundamentals! (stand with your feet just more than shoulder-width apart, knees slightly flexed, etc - though that may be other sports)

So much more detail I could give...ask me about my upcoming book. (And possibly see part 2 of this post)