Bloc by Bloc Kickstarter Preview/Review

We told you about the kickstarter for a new board game called Bloc by Bloc: The Insurrection Game.

I had a chance to sit down and play with a prototype of the game. *Note the pictures in this review, are from my press review prototype, so things will look different in the final version (I am not going to talk about any artwork or anything, as this is the case)

Bloc by Bloc: The Insurrection Game is a game by Rocket Lee and Tim Simons, published by Out of Order Games. It is for 2-4 players. In this game, The players are tasked with joining a growing rebellion as it spreads across a changing city landscape. Players have to learn to work together to occupy all the state districts in the city before the military arrives and shuts it all down if they hope to succeed.

To complicate things a bit, each faction will have a secret agenda that they will be trying to accomplish which may hinder or even work against the other factions.

The factions are workers, neighbors, prisoners, or students. Each faction of the insurrection is a different color and gets three common and two unique abilities, and are able to occupy different districts in the city.

The AI-controlled police will pursue players throughout the game to try and defend the city and quell the insurrection. You of course, want to oppose them as much as you can, but you must also keep mind what your “secret agenda” is as well. Which can lead to interesting things for both you and the other players.

At the start of the game you’ll receive your faction card with spots and explanations for the various buildings you can erect in areas of the city you control, cubes for your followers, and a secret agenda card tasking you with completing a varied set of victory conditions. Some victory conditions are aimed at making the rebellion succeed while controlling certain locations, whereas others are a bit more nihilistic and require the rebellion to fail while, for instance, having set a certain number of buildings on fire or having less than a specified number of police deployed. You’ll look at the city’s configuration and choose an occupation spot of your color as your starting district, and also receive two loot cards to start you off.

The board is randomized at setup which determines the starting spots for the State (The Police), and the possible starting spots for each of the 4 factions as well as dead ends and paths for movement. Each player rolls a number of action dice determined by how many workers (blocs) you have on the board, then use the dice to do actions such as move, loot buildings, build barricades, occupy neighborhoods, you may also elect to fight the police

The majority of tiles also have an occupation circle on them indicating players can construct a building there for a permanent benefit; there are three tiles per person with occupations for their colored tokens, two neutral occupations anyone can capture, and four State districts where the government forces start. Those four latter tiles each get a riot van and three riot cops at the start of the game, and are the districts from which you can expect riot cops to deploy throughout the city.

I’ll be honest and say I enjoyed this more then I thought I would. I normally do not like the “revolution” type of games. But this was different, and fun . The randomization of the board generally works well and aids replay ability.

I played the 2 player variant rules, but I can see that this would be a absolute blast with 4 players. I’m sure the “Every man for himself, screw over your friends” would be in full effect in a 4 player game! Which of course is not a bad thing at all.

My Final Thoughts

Bloc by Bloc would make a great addition to any game night. Grab some pizza and beers and fight the man as well as your friends!

Was fairly easy to learn the rules (I did find myself looking in the directions a few times for some clarification) but over all easy to learn, but the random aspect of the tiles placement will lead to different strategies each game. Play time should be about 120-180 minutes

Another note to keep in mind is that you will need a BIG table to play this. there are a TON of pieces!

*As my copy was a prototype, this image is courtesy of Out Of Order Games*