Block Party is praised for its innovative blend of AI and real-world interaction, offering a unique gaming experience that captivates players. Users appreciate the game's creativity, community engagement, and the ability to play both passively and actively. The active development team is commended for frequent updates, enhancing gameplay and keeping it fresh. Players enjoy the strategic clan features and the excitement of collecting and creating unique items. The game is described as addictive and engaging, with a supportive and vibrant community that enhances the overall experience.
We built Block Party because we’re gamers who have always wondered what it would be like if a game world were generated by its players. When image models like Dall-E and Flux came out, we experienced the joy of being able to generate any image you could imagine, but we also knew from experience that sitting in front of a Midjourney or ChatGPT text box was paralyzing. We felt that creating with AI could become a lot easier by gamifying it, and building simple and delightful UX around it.
What has really worked for us:
Human-Model Interaction: Block Party is the easiest way to interact with an image model leveraging cards and simple modifier switches. Players have control and are able to see out their intended creations, but are able to do so without prompt engineering.
Game Item Generation: All game items are generated using AI. This allows us to add 50 new items a week in minutes, not days.
Constraints Birth Magic: Players’s outputs are constrained by their inventory and the input modifiers. Players have to navigate a latent space for how the cards work and figure out how to leverage them to get the outputs they are seeking, which has led to some really amazing creation.
Variable Rewards: Every time we take an action like opening a drop or creating something new we are excited to see what comes of it. This variable reward makes for a strong game loop.
What we've found difficult:
Content Control: Image models have a mind of their own sometimes and we’d be lying if we said there weren’t images generated that were NSFW, contained copyrighted material, or drifted away from our trained art style. Our solution has largely been to rely on user-reported content moderation, but in the future intend to leverage LLM’s to support this.
Choosing the Right Art Style and Sticking with It: For the game to feel consistent, we’ve trained a LoRA on an art style to use throughout the game. It’s often tempting to add more art styles, but doing so in a clean way that is coherent with the game is a challenge.
Please give the game a try and let us know what you think!
What's working for you?
What could be improved?
We'd love to hear your feedback.
@anthony_parente2 More avatar slots when?
@generaltso More avatar slots will be available within the next week!
@anthony_parente2 This is my number one game right now! Awesome community and a next generation mobile game design embracing AI in the best way.
@anthony_parente2 Been playing for a long time and can’t be more satisfied, but you Could enhance the property owning aspect, some rewards for holding property especially in high real estate?
@sam_8 totally - we have some plans to reward property ownership in the game!
Epic game! I been playing for weeks now and have managed to build a cool portfolio of buildings, with magical interiors. Wished could host mini-games inside my buildings! (maybe, generative mini-games?)
@asantanilla12 Ooooh I like where your head is at with generative mini games hosted in. buildings 😏
I’ve been playing Block Party for a few months now and it’s quickly become my favorite mobile game:
It gets me out of the house and “drop hunting” like no game since Pokémon and Geocaching
It scratches the “collect ‘em all” itch, with new cards being added every Friday
In addition to tucking them away in a digital binder, I can use those cards to make and remix unique buildings/avatars via GenAI
My play style is mostly collecting cards and making realistic avatars, but I appreciate how a diversity of play styles are catered to. You can buy and build up virtual properties around you, making your favorite haunts look (nothing) like their real-world counterparts. You can even engage in PvP, looting rare and valuable cards from others’ under-defended builds—but beware of reprisal!
What really sets this game apart, however, is how involved the developers are with the community. In Discord, the developers are in constant conversation with the players to provide updates and support, admire shared builds/avatars, and solicit feedback on new cards—many of which actually make it into the game every week! This level of engagement by the developers makes it feel like the game is ever-improving because of its community.
I’m a huge fan of Block Party and its developers and I wish them massive success in the future!
@catharsis Really appreciate the kind words!
@catharsis Thank you SO MUCH for this comprehensive review! We really appreciate your involvement in the community and are so glad that you enjoy the various aspects of Block party that set it out as being unique.
You are absolutely right to point this out:
We really treasure and value the community's feedback and contributions toward making Block Party great!
I LOVE Block Party!
I’ve never played a video game in my life and I am absolutely hooked on this one!!
Collecting has been one of my favorite features of the game.
This community is growing so quickly and it’s been so awesome to see and the Devs are working overtime to add new features as the community grows. Love love love it!!!!!
@leanarae Thank you so much Leana! We're glad you are having so much fun playing :)
Started playing this game back in January, haven’t put it down since. Between how much fun the game is and the social community that has grown around it, this is easily one of my favorites.
@mistyyyyyy We're glad you're enjoying and are happy that you're part of our community!
This is the greatest mobile game since Clash of Clans, if you aren’t playing you are missing out!!!!
@justin_dias Thank you so much for the kind review!
Quadratic
It's a super fun game for the casual enthusiast. I'm not much of a gamer, but I've really enjoyed the entertainment Block Party provides, and I love the retro-style graphics!
@peter_at_quadratic Thank you so much Pete - glad you agree that Block Party is great for the casual enthusiast