Game Review: Blocky Bronco (Mobile – Free to Play)

Blocky Bronco is a free to play game that has some serious issues that make it a frustrating & pointless play. The gameplay is simple. Your character (one of 24) jumps onto an automated animal & it’s your job to stay on as long as possible as it attempts to throw you off.

You do this by tapping the screen as the indicator swings past icons in a constantly moving circle. The longer you stay on, the faster it gets with some icons sending the indicator back the opposite way or causing instant failure. Once you do fail your character is launched off with force crashing into buildings, crowds & explosives with rag doll physics.

Your score is then converted into stars which count as your XP. Levelling up brings with it presents that unlock items & the chance to match cards to unlock a new character. This is out of six cards & you have to match 3 of the same. No easy task at all & should you fail that’s it. Unless you watch a video ad which gives you a chance to turn over one more card.

Characters offer nothing but a visual change & are the only reason to continue to play the game after a few minutes. There are 24 in total & there are only two ways to unlock them. One is by levelling up & matching cards as described above & the other is *sigh* by paying for them. Hilariously, each character costs 99p ensuring that very few people are likely to spend any actual money on them.

This is not the only area that employs unattractive in-app purchases though. Blocky Bronco has a selection of locations, five in total, that are seemingly unlocked at certain level caps. However, should you want to play them early, you can spend real money to gain access. For example, the fifth location which is Space unlocks at level 50 or you can spend £2.99 instead.

Now here is where things get a bit cheeky. You see when you reach the level where the next location is unlocked it implies you have instant access but that is not the case. Instead what it means is the location is now available to be unlocked by spending the gems you’ve earned in-game!

These are picked up by hitting gem icons while playing. Or by watching ads to double your gain/watching ads to be gifted certain amounts. Each new location massively increases the number of gems needed to actually play in them.

You might think this is no big deal but it’s excessive roadblocks designed to try & make you part with your cash. After about an hour of constant playing/watching ads I still only had 71 gems & to actually play the ‘Diner’ level I would need 250 gems or to pay £1.99!

Of course, there is also a gem store where you can spend up to £6.99 for a finite number of gems. Gems that are only actually used for one thing: to play the different locations! Even still if you were to spend money on gems, you can’t get access to spend those gems until you reach the level needed to unlock the location! It is utterly absurd to see a game do everything possible to make its in-app purchases so pointless!

Gameplay is so light as there are no extra modes. It’s the same thing over & over again that really isn’t as fun as the developer would have you think. One of the most pathetic free to play games to come out in a long time. Hardly entertaining, very little replay value & some of the dumbest in-app purchases I’ve seen in a long time.