Beat Blocks

Beat Blocks is a four-lane rhythm game on a neon highway that runs straight into a cartoon city. Colourful blocks ride down the lanes towards a glowing hit bar: tap the lane as a block crosses it, keep your finger or key down for the long ones, and hit two lanes at once when a pair arrives side by side. Every hit is judged perfect, good or okay, the combo builds a multiplier of up to four times, and a crowd of blobs along the pavement bounces higher the longer you keep it going. A miss only breaks the combo. The song always plays to the end, and a full combo throws confetti.

The music is made in your browser while you play rather than loaded from a file. Twenty-four original songs come in four styles, chiptune, funk, drum and bass and orchestral, each with its own drums, bass line, pad and lead, and the blocks are cut from the drum pattern and the melody, so what you tap is what you hear. Songs are quick, about a minute each, with a par score, a best score and three stars to earn, and the first one, First Steps, teaches the lanes one at a time. The highway pulses on every beat and every note arrives as a block well ahead of time, so the game plays just as well with the sound off.

Block Party is the endless mode: fresh patterns are dealt out phrase by phrase, the style changes every minute and the tempo climbs by eight beats per minute each time, until the crowd's hype runs out. Your high score stays on your device, together with your stars and the offset from the tap-along calibration screen, which lines the timing up with whatever headphones or speakers you use. Play with D, F, J and K or the arrow keys, by touch on a phone or tablet, or with the mouse. P pauses and M mutes.