"Do you find yourself with too much time? Need to relax? Can’t get rid of that gnawing feeling that something is wrong? Play City Blocks! City Blocks is a fun twist on a timeless classic. In City Blocks you must steer the ball in to the bricks without letting the words stop you. Genres: Slight-Horror, Typing, and Block-Breaking"

What is a "slight-horror" typing & block building game? What’s up with that gnawing feeling that something is wrong? Were you, the player, dead the entire time? This post-mortem will explain the ending and, as such, we strongly encourage you to play our game first and see if you caught what I am about to explain.

When the team asked me to come up with the direction, description and details of the game, I took a step back and asked myself: “what novel idea could we do with the concept?”

(1) Arguably, the closest game is “Typing of the Living Dead.” Typing of the Living Dead is arguably a cult-classic game that combines the over-the-top zombie outbreak premise with a typing simulator. In that game, the game prompts you to type words to fend off the zombies. Many of the words you are asked to type are relevant to the situation.

(2) I am a bit of a horror game and ARG enthusiast. I am a fan "Petscop" and a web-series called “Catghost.” Whenever “Catghost” releases a new YouTube video they include a video game that delves deeper in to the meta-plot. Many of the video games use text, sometimes as part of the gameplay, to cryptically hint at a greater plot.

Rather quickly, I decided that the game should go down a “Doki Doki Literature Club” route of psychological horror and pitched the idea that the game should be an analogy about texting while driving then dying in a car accident. The bricks serve as the road, or main objective, while the words serve as a text, or the main distraction. Hence the name of the game: you died driving down the city blocks.

To capture this feeling, the main-menu is designed as a cell-phone. The main-menu of the game has a glitched “voice-mail” button that foreshadows the importance of this voice-mail to the plot.

Some of our words provide a buff or a benefit like a slower ball speed or large paddle. Many of “buff” words are somewhat difficult to type and are to subtly emphasize to the player that these words are meaningful and relevant.

“cruise control” “support” “ambulance” “brakes” “kinetic” “air bags” “trapped” “justice” “lifeline”

Many, if not all, of the none-buff words are connected to the plot: driving, texting, car accident, death, purgatory.

“qwerty” “rage” “send” “gas” “steer” “gaze’ “test” “stress” “fade” “defeat” “route” “car” “sin” “grace” “seat” “tear” “hex” “abstract” “ravage” “weary”

We included words that are text-speak or shorthand to emphasize the cellphone/texting part of the plot:

“jk lol” “=)” “nm u?”

We used the words to expand the plot a bit more. A child was involved in the accident and the player-character had a wife. This is strongly suggested by several of the words:

“rearseat” “child” “accident” “wife” “marry” “love” “dear”

Lastly, there are glitched words to try to re-emphasize the importance of the voice-mail and the overall trapped in purgatory theme:

“1 new message” “trapped here” “failure. failure. failure.” “look. at. the. ball.”

(Note: the game has many more words about a hundred altogether)

Should the player reach the high score, they are treated to a win-screen. The win-screen is the main menu, but cracked, and now they can access the voicemail. The voicemail is a female voice that says:

“Hi Hun just got your text don’t worry it can wait”

Strongly implying that whatever you were texting about with your wife, at the time of your death, was completely pointless.

Even among the creators, we differ in regards to some the finer details. For example, @Injured’s interpretation of the plot: the player-character is unaware and trapped in purgatory and must remember/accept their death to leave purgatory. The player died in a car accident while they were texting and driving with their wife about a stupid argument. @Legavroche's interpretation is that the player-character is still alive at the start of the game but by the end of the game is dead (hence why the cell phone menu starts as uncracked but ends as cracked).

And that’s the plot of “City Blocks” explained. Overall, the team had a lot of fun in our first LDJam. We encourage people to try our game and judge for yourself on whether we were successful in our plot or if you have a different interpretation (and try to spot the one Petscop reference and one Catghost reference). Thank you all for the wonderful feedback and being such a great community!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/city-blocks