Blockout

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs

GAME DESIGNER:Alexander Ustaszewski & Mirek Zablocki
GAME DEVELOPER:California Dreams
GAME PUBLISHER:California Dreams
Copyright 1989, California Dreams

One of the best Tetris clones ever made, California Dreams’ Blockout is essentially Tetris with a third dimension: depth. In this first official Tetris variant that was not published by Spectrum Holobyte, you must rotate the blocks in 3D in order to fit them on the bottom of the grid. Advanced users can play this game with odd three-dimensional pieces. Trixter said it all in his solid capsule review of the game: “A very fast and capable simulation, it solved the problem of hidden surfaces by displaying each block as a wireframe before dropping it down.

Blockout is also very configurable. You can rotate blocks forward and backward along the x, y, and z axis (although all you really need is the x and y axis), and you can specify how many levels deep or high/wide when you play. A seperate high score is kept for each configuration for fairness. Support for multiple graphics modes is also well done, making Blockout playable on almost any machine.

My only complaint with Blockout is that there’s no way to see empty spaces underneath the top layer. This is a hard problem to solve visually, so I’m not really blaming the designers (who did a great job). I guess I’m just lamenting my own memory’s inability to keep track of 4 or 5 stacks of blocks. :-)” Tetris fans, eat your heart out with this great variant that is much better than Welltris, the “official” 3D Tetris.