Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:44:00 UTC
ive recently learned about a newish indie rhythm game called Beatblock. the demo has been out for a while on itch and the early access version has been on steam since september. the game is well worth the $15 in its current state and im very excited to follow its development. i played it for about 10 hours straight yesterday. its very very rare that i play a game for that long in a day, let alone in one sitting.
beatblock is a round rhythm game. like, circles round. i like round rhythm games. beatblock can be played with mouse and keyboard or controller, requiring only an analog directional input and one button. when playing with a mouse your directional input is whichever direction your cursor is in relation to the center. the general gameplay is that you are intended to rotate your paddle to block objects that are coming at you. theres multiple note types but they all follow the same basic principle. there are also taps, which require you to press the button with the correct timing. this is the only timed object type, the rest are not timed, instead being scored based on directional accuracy. the game is always nofail and doesnt use a meter system like games like arcaea and sound voltex do.
the way beatblock feels is quite reminiscent of just shapes and beats. hit objects are part of the level design and contribute greatly to the vibe of a stage. the game also has a robust vfx system, allowing charters to make every stage feel quite unique. at present the level editor is pretty rough around the edges but this does not hamper the quality of the official or custom charts at all. several custom charts do things that have me wondering if the level editor just full on lets you write custom shaders. both the official and community made charts are extremely well made, with the OST being quite good while also having a surprising amount of variety.
from here on there will be spoilers. i recommend playing the demo at a minimum, and if you like it go get it on steam. the steam version contains all of the demo content and more, theres no reason to finish the demo before getting it on steam.
as im playing the game, working through the levels, i come to BLOW A FUSE. i start playing it and im like "oh shit, teto??" the game had thrown a decent variety at me by that point but for some reason i still didnt expect vocaloid, let alone teto. turns out the song is great. like, its definitely in my top three of the ost. as the song is almost over im not expecting anything else because like, its the end of the song, what else could they do? then they throw in a sample from unbeatable's PROPER RHYTHM. (why do all these songs have all caps names lol). needless to say the sample caught me very off guard, and i was so very here for it. PROPER RHYTHM is one of my favorites from unbeatable's soundtrack, and for it to be sampled in a teto song in the soundtrack for another game? hell yeah.
another song, C-ミ B-ミ, samples Overkill by RIOT. once again i was not expecting this. i did look into it to be sure i wasnt doing a silly and it does turn out Overkill samples another song but Overkill's sample is heavily pitch shifted and C-ミ B-ミ's sample matches that so im pretty confident.
in typical rhythm game fashion, beatblock features a few songs from other rhythm games. Code Remix from Heaven Studio, Lucky Break from Rhythm Doctor, Empty Diary from unbeatable, Spin Cycle from Spin Rhythm XD, and heptagramme from vivid/stasis. heptagramme is neat because, as the name implies, its not in 4/4 timing like nearly every rhtyhm game song ever is. the way beatblock handles new unlocks is that they just show "new song unlocked" until you click on them, and when you click it brings you straight to the preview screen. so imagine how i felt when i clicked on a freshly unlocked song, recognized the song playing within a quarter second, and saw the art of Beat in this game's art style. much like PROPER RHYTHM, Empty Diary is one of my favorites. this is peak gaming.
community made custom maps. they are sooooo good. the community takes the quality of the official charts and runs with it. im like 110% sure the charting community is mostly autistic queers. Teto, Toby Fox, Femtanyl, and Flavor Foley make up a big chunk of the community made charts. a lot of the custom charts are so well done that they make me wonder if theres full scripting and shader support in the level editor. several of them do things that i did not know could be done in this game. one chart has the letters in its name moving around on the menu. i have no idea how theyve achieved this short of there being a flag for it in the game that nothing else uses. now that im thinking about it there are a couple secret songs i dont have unlocked, its entirely possible one of those uses it. also this game is made in love2d, the same engine as balatro. i have also just learned that there is mod support but ive yet to look into that.
theres also unlockable cosmetics, including such wonders as dog ears with the description "dgo", cat ears with the description "cta", just straight up turning you into a square, and also Quaver's bow from unbeatable. Quaver is too precious, we dont deserve Quaver. go play unbeatable, its a great game that i forgot to write a post about. i hope some songs from beatblock get put into unbeatable, especially BLOW A FUSE. i cant wait to see how this game evolves and ill likely be playing it immediately after every content update.
also theres a fishing minigame.