Perhaps this review should begin with a confession.

I have hardly looked at Bloxels.  I read the description of it on the website when Timberdoodle offered it for a review.  (You can order it by itself of course, or it comes as part of the second grade curriculum kit.)

 

I thought, “I bet my kids would like that.”  Bloxels is a create-your-own-video-game.  And my kids – like most human children – are attracted to screens and games.  I figured an educational video game could be better than your average video game.

When the box arrived the kids were very excited to try it. I wasn’t ready to look it over yet but I decided to let them take the reigns and just go for it.  Which is what they did.

 

 

London and Bergen opened the box.  They read the instructions.  They downloaded the ap to my phone.  Then they have played it a TON and ask to play it every day – even more than they ask to play Minecraft.  (Maybe that’s enough of a review right here.)

At any rate, logic and good sense says that the people who should be conducting this review are the people who use this product.

 

 

Therefore, I now officially turn this review over to my children.  London (8th grade) and Bergen (6th grade) will be letting us know how Bloxels works and what’s good and bad and in-between about it.  Also, other children will walk into our conversation and insert their opinion.  A taste of my real life.

Me:  Alright guys.  So – what IS Bloxels anyway?

Bergen: It’s a video game where you can design your own levels and your own characters.

London: So – it’s like you make your own video game.

Piper: I would say it’s kind of like Minecraft, but you actually get to create things.  And there are jetpacks.

Me:  What’s fun about it?

London: That YOU get to design your own world.  But you don’t have to design your own world if you don’t want to.  They do have worlds that you can already use.

Me:  Explain the process to me.

Bergen:  You have to download a free ap.  There’s a game board and you can design your board.  You arrange the little blocks in a way you like.  You take a picture of your blocks – it will guide you to take the perfect picture.  Then you can play on the world you just created.

Piper:  You can make your own characters.  It’s just really fun – you can choose what they actually look like.  You can make weird blobs.

Bergen:  Otto made a banana.  I made an apple.

Otto:  You can just do a square – or a line.  I did a line for a jumping banana.

Bergen:  I also designed a car.

And then,  although I intended for this questing to go along farther, some distraction came upon our lives.  I’d love to tell you what that distraction was, but frankly, I have no recollection of what it might have been.  ( I give you permission to imagine whatever you’d like it to be here. )

 

 

The bottom line is – the kids all love playing the Bloxels game.  From second grader to eighth grader.  I don’t think I could say it is more educational than say, a math lesson, but I’d say it is more educational than say, an episode of The Odd Squad.

Our entire family also feels strongly that the game would be loads more easy on the eyes to play if you were on an iPad instead of my small screened phone.  Our iPad is tragically already so outdated that it is no longer accepting new aps so we couldn’t play Bloxels on it.

Certainly not reason enough to justify an iPad purchase, but if you already own one – then bonus.

For the record, I do have an extremely low tolerance for video games and their usage but I am minority in those feelings in my house.  Therefore, Bloxels feels like a decent compromise to me.

The kis do, however, give it an enthusiastic thumbs up.

 

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