This week, the scene went nuts but now let’s calm down a bit and look at some software releases. BlockOut II is a reimplentation of the original BlockOut game that was originally developed in Poland in 1989.

What’s this homebrew?

This software was originally written by ‘Jean-Luc PONS’ but it was ported to the Vita by developer ‘bomblik’. BlockOut is a puzzle game à la Tetris but this time, it’s in 3D which creates an interesting perspective for playing the game. Like Tetris, you must complete rows of blocks and you can also rotate blocks to your likings.

In-game screenshot

Originally released in Arcades and later for the Genesis/MegaDrive, we can now enjoy it on various consoles, such as the OpenPandora, thanks to this open-source implementation. BlockOut uses TinyGL, so while it’s not the first 3D accelerated homebrew for the Vita, it’s the first one to use OpenGL. OpenGL will probably allow developers to make even more awesome homebrew so stay tuned!

How do I get it?

As always, with GekiHEN releases, it’s quite simple to download it and install it on your device. Just grab the VPK from the GekiHEN link at the bottom of this article, install it and play away. Controls are quite straightforward but you should really check them out on the GekiHEN page to avoid some button mashing.

The game is mostly finished but the developer says that they want to fix the mechanism that allows you to send your scores online. It’s important to note that there may be tiny issues because of TinyGL. Stay tuned for further releases!

GekiHEN link: http://gekihen.customprotocol.com/en/project/BlockOut-II