Matthew BaileyGame 33 of the “Bailey Family Summer 2023 Board Game Bonanza” is “Block Ness” played by Jack (8.), Toby (5), fellow board game member Rebecca Louise and her son James(4).
I reviewed “Block Ness” back on Christmas Day 2021 but as we have a lot of new members since then I thought it would be one worth mentioning and going through again as Block Ness is one Toby’s favourites and often one we bring out to show new people. That being said however my opinions of it are not quite as high as it was 18 months ago.
“Block Ness” is a fairly simple game that can be best described as 3D multiplayer Tron (or snake). You each choose a colour for your Loch Ness Monster and start with the shortest pieces (which is slightly different for each colour). You can then add a new piece either next to the head or the tail and elongate your Monster in the process. You cannot go over the top of Head and Tails and you cannot go under existing Monsters.
Pieces can only be placed adjacently and not diagonals. From my experience, young children often find the concept of adjacent but not diagonal unexpectedly difficult to grasp. Toby(5) used to struggle with this and James(4) also really struggled with this as it was his first time playing. The great strategy element also comes where there is a toss-up between using your tall pieces early to block others or keeping your tall pieces in case others try to block you.
This then becomes a rather excellent spatial awareness strategy game as you lay pieces, try to plan out where everything is going to go and guess what others are going to do.
The person with the least amount of pieces left at the end when no one can go wins. It doesn’t take too long and it’s good fun and for the most part easy to understand.
Now the game is not perfect and the issues with it have strengthened a bit over time. Firstly while there are more gaps at different players the game is a little crowded at 4 and a little cramped at 2 and personally 3 is my favourite amount of players. When playing with younger kids you could always use the space for 3 or 4 players even when playing 2 to help them get started.
The colours are definitely not balanced and starting with a piece with smaller starting pieces such as black definitely is a slight disadvantage. A benefit to this however is you cannot mirror image the other player which my kids love doing in games like Blokus much to my frustration.
What is a massive imbalance however is that there is no balance for the starting position meaning going first puts you at a massive advantage over going 3rd or 4th. definitely when playing with young kids let them go first.
If playing with 2 players you can also choose 2 colours each and then mix up the starting positions. I would recommend going with P1-P2-P2-P1 for the best balance, P1-P2-P1-P2 for somewhere in the middle and P1-P1-P2-P2 with the adult being P2 when playing with tiny kids.
Block Ness is one of Toby’s favourite games and is one of our most played regular games.
Component quality is high and everything is well made and fits in the box nicely and cleanly.
It;s not perfect and O don’t hold it in quite as high regards as I did back on Xmas 2021 but this is a strong fave in our house and if you can work with its flaws it is an excellent and unique game.
