Throw, knock down, boom!
When it became apparent that the Nintendo Wii was a runaway success, the system began attracting developers that had never before thought to develop a video game. One of those developers was Steven Spielberg who wanted to create a unique game that specifically made use of the Wii's motion controls and was easy to pick up and play. Enter Boom Blox, a physics-based action puzzle game.In Boom Blox, each level consists of a different block structure. The player must either manipulate a different object and throw it at the blocks to knock them down, or remove the blocks one-by-one without disturbing the structure in the same gameplay style as Jenga. Later levels introduce new tactics for beating levels such as avoiding destruction of negative point blocks or setting up chain reactions.
The game features two main modes. Adventure and Explore Modes are the single-player mode with the Adventure mode featuring four small stories and Explore mode being more open-world. The game also features a level creator to allow the player to build their own levels.
In 2009 a sequel was released named Boom Blox: Bash Party which adds new elements such as underwater and outer space environments as well as new block shapes like cylinders and ramps.
Both games provide examples of:
Both games
- Artistic License – Physics: Fully averted. Both games feature a very realistic physics engine in regards to throwing objects, chain reaction events, and actual block falls.
- Color-Coded Multiplayer: Blue for Player 1, Red for Player 2, green for Player 3, and yellow for Player 4.
- Dem Bones: Skully "Bones" McGill, a skeleton character who appears as an enemy in the Spooky world in the first game's adventure mode.
- Gameplay Grading: The single-player modes grade you with a bronze, silver, or gold medal depending on your score. The game always show the goal for each medal before each stage.
- Level Editor: The game allows you to either create a level from scratch, or modify any existing ones.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: In the original game, one hit is all it took for the characters to disappear in a puff of smoke. Averted in Bash Party, where the characters can endure any hit they take, as long as they don't fall into a Bottomless Pit.
- Score Multiplier: In certain modes involving Point Blox, these appear in the form of colored fields. If the Point Blox are hit into the fields, they will have their point value multiplied by the specified amount. This also applies to Penalty Blox, however.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Naturally.
- One of the Toys the player can use is a bomb ball that explodes on contact.
- Bomb Blox, a specific block type that explodes when hit by anything.
- Chemical Blox, which explode when two come into contact.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: There is nothing stopping you from attacking the block characters throughout the levels. Some levels even position the characters in such a way that attacking them is encouraged.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: "Boom Blox". In-game, the word is always spelled that way as well.
Boom Blox
- Bears Are Bad News: The second chapter of the Gem Kingdom chapter involves an army of bears attempting to steal Woolington's gems they collected in the first chapter.
- Big Boo's Haunt: The fourth and final campaign in Adventure mode has this theme.
- Company Cameo: One level in Explore mode in the first game is designed to look like the logo for Electronic Arts, the game's publisher.
- The Computer Shall Taunt You: Whereas most characters cheer if you score points and cower if you miss, Skully will dance if you fail to score any points.
- Escort Mission: Certain chapters in Adventure mode have missions of this type, primarily in the "Gorilda Rescue" chapter.
- Gentle Gorilla: Gorilda, the protagonist of the second campaign in Adventure mode, the loving mother on a quest to rescue her baby Gerts.
- Rhyming Episode: The cutscenes in the first game tell the story in rhyme. This was dropped in the sequel.
- The Wild West: The third world in adventure mode has this theme.
Boom Blox: Bash Party
- Circus Episode: One of the worlds in this game takes place in a circus.
- Gangplank Galleon: The Pirate world.
- Mad Scientist Laboratory: Two level themes in the Heroic world take place in a laboratory. One of them is above the surface, with water serving as an out of bounds zone, while the other takes place in an underwater dome.
- Space Zone: The Space world in Bash Party. One level is set in reduced gravity, where thrown objects fly a lot slower and blocks float away instead of falling over.
- Under the Sea: One of the level themes in the Pirate world takes place here. Gravity in this level is reduced, though not to the extent of the space level.
