Archaeologist? Treasure Hunter?

⬜Block and Key🗝️

Have you ever wanted to become a daring archaeologist and dig deep into history, solving the riddles of the hieroglyphs and the mysteries of the long forgotten past of the world?

You have?

Then why not take a closer look at this beautifully unique experience by Insideup Games and see if it is what you need in your life to take you on that immersive, thematic adventure from the comfort of your own home with your friends or family.

Block and Key is a Light weight game for 1 - 4 players, recommended for ages 8 plus. Personally I would agree with this age recommendation, depending on the child's abilities. I played this with my 8 year old who plays medium weight games quite easily but he took a while to grasp the concept of the unique perspective. and my 5 year old did not understand this at all.

The game takes around 20-40 minutes depending on player count and quickly you can solve the puzzle cards.

So, what exactly is Block and Key?

Just like I said above, the idea of the game is you become an archaeologist and you have to try and be the first to solve the set number of Key Cards from your own unique 2D viewpoint, by placing blocks you excavate from the yard.

It is a unique, 3-D, polyomino, puzzle building game where you solve the clues to the temple long forgotten by time.

Each turn, players can choose between excavating 3 of the polyomino, 3-D blocks from a single row or column in the excavation yard,

OR

Position one block from their supply onto the temple floor, following the placement rules, only scoring from your own perspective.

Then, if possible score one or more 'Key Cards' and draw a new one.

There are 3 different levels of difficulty to the Key Cards - stars, suns and moons. Each player starts with 2 stars (easy), 1 sun and moon, (medium and hard).

The games unique playability is where things become more interesting. The game is played in a 3D environment, but you are solely focused on your own viewpoint, however this won't stop the blocks you place from potentially having implications for other players at the table

Blocks can only be placed corner to corner, or face to face but new block must be taller than the one already down.

👌 Pros and cons👌

+ This game requires a lot of thinking and strategy but is an easy to learn, family friendly game.

+ The rules are simple and easy to learn, but the game is hard to master which makes it fun to play over and over again.

+ Unique game presentation

+ Beautiful artwork

- Can potentially lead to a bit too much thinking time between turns and put people off.

- Limited player interaction

💭 Final thoughts 💭

The multi tiered board is structured out of the games box which is an excellent use of materials. When I initially received the game, I worried about how the cube shaped board would be structured and if it would hold due to how thin the box was,

but the developers did an amazing job. The polyomino bricks are super, a lovely weight and feel while playing the game.

The story and theme put into the artwork within the rule bok and box / board itself is incredible, it gives you an immersive lost temple, Indiana Jones vibe which is spectacular.

Overall, we really enjoyed this game, it is unique, it happily sits in that "easy to play, hard to master" category.

*This game was gifted to us for review, but all thoughts are my own*

This is part of my Game recommendations ready for the New Indiana Jones film about to be released - why not check out the others

Here