Shooting Blocks

Shooting Blocks is a tower demolition physics game with power-ups and a system of lives. There are about 50 levels; on each there is a barely stable tower of icy blocks.

Some of these blocks must be destroyed - either by direct clicking or by falling off the sides of the frozen base platform - and other blocks must be preserved from said modes of destruction to complete the level perfectly. You'll get a star by the level number on the menu if you do.

Taking into consideration the considerable fan base who are more casual players, the developers have built in a system of lives that allows some good blocks to be destroyed, subtracting the corresponding lives lost from a running total. The problem is that it's impossible to go back and improve upon past levels' performances, so once you're down to one life you have to complete subsequent levels perfectly. It's possible to earn lives by scoring well, but I suspect that the frequency of earning is too low for the average casual player.

There's also a problem with the bonuses: they appear completely randomly. If you retry a level enough times, you're bound to pass it simply because a bonus will appear that makes a solution trivial. Perhaps, some are fans of this feature, but I find it undermines the entire gameplay mechanic.

On the redeeming side, Shooting Blocks has nice game art and well-designed tower puzzles.