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 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.
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.
My Final Thoughts
I won’t comment on the artowrk and quialty of the pieces, as my copy was a prototype, but I was happy even with those pieces. the artwork has a “comical” feel to it, which is an odd choice for such a dark theme, but I think this does help, to keep the game fun.
Out Of Order Games, took ther time with this one, and tweaked some rules and gameplay from the first edtion of the game, Co-Op play is MUCH better in this version, in my opion. The addition of the fabric “game board” is a welcome addition here (This is a stretch goal for the kickstarter) it made set up and gameplay run a bit smoother, then just having the tiles on the table. So thumbs on that addtion, I hope to see this stretch goal fall quickly!
Was fairly easy to learn the rules (I did find myself looking in the directions a few times for some clarification) but overall easy to learn, but the random aspect of the tiles placement will lead to different strategies each game. And each faction plays a bit differnt, so you will have an intersting time if you choose to play a faction in a new game. as you will have to learn all the best strategy for each.
This game will make a great game to put out on the table during your gamenights, grab some beer, fire up some Rage Agianst The Machine, and have a blast!
You can help make the second editon of the game right now, head over to the kickstarter page and make a pledge, as of this writing there are 26 days to go and they are at 64 % of the goal.
A big thanks to Out Of Order Games, for prodiving us the prototype copy of the game, for this review, this like all our other reviews had no effect on the outcome of the review.
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