Brick Battalion

I went in expecting a throwaway puzzle curiosity and came out with a grudging respect for what Scoria Studios was attempting here. Brick Battalion is pulling hard from the action-puzzle lineage - think Puyo Puyo's chain-combo DNA transplanted into a space-battle wrapper - and for a two-person indie outfit, the structural ambition is real. Matches run up to eight players simultaneously, spanning solo Free-For-All, structured team modes, and custom lobbies where you can dial in difficulty, handicaps, and game speed, then mix in bots wherever you need bodies. That last part matters more than it sounds. The core loop is matching and chaining bricks to fire attacks at opponents. Landing longer chains sends bigger garbage payloads across the field, which is the same reward loop that made Puyo Puyo tournaments a thing in Japan for thirty years. Brick Battalion understands the basic satisfaction of that mechanic - building a chain, watching it collapse in sequence, seeing your opponent's board fill up. The custom game suite also lets you spectate matches to study patterns, which is a genuinely useful feature for anyone trying to get better at reading setups. There is also a gauntlet single-player mode where you fight waves of bots, and a high-score table if you want a solo target to chase. Here is where I have to be straight with you, though. The online side of this game is the problem, and for a multiplayer-forward title, that is a serious issue. Community posts as far back as launch flag server connectivity problems, and the player count has never grown large enough to sustain organic matchmaking. Seven total Steam reviews in nearly a decade tells you everything about the population sitting in that lobby screen right now. The ranked ladder exists on paper - skill-based matchmaking, climbing ranks - but finding a real human opponent through it in 2024 is a coin flip at best. One community thread noted that gem rotation mechanics drew criticism, with players pointing out there is no defensive counterplay option against incoming damage, which flattens the strategic ceiling once you figure out the optimal chain rhythm. What saves this from being a total writeoff is the bot ecosystem and the custom game flexibility. Offline mode supports every game style against bots of increasing difficulty, so if you organise your own group - Discord friends, a couch situation via local co-op, Remote Play Together - the actual game underneath is functional and fast. The 78 Steam Achievements give completionist types a genuine checklist to work through. Performance demands are practically nothing; this will run on hardware from fifteen years ago without a hiccup. Bottom line from me: Brick Battalion had the right instincts. A competitive puzzle game with eight-player online, ranked play, and deep custom match options is exactly the kind of thing that fills a real gap. But a thin player base and unresolved netcode concerns mean the online promise has largely gone unfulfilled. Treat it as a private-lobby game with friends you can physically or digitally organise, and there is a scrappy, replayable puzzle fighter here. Walk in expecting a living online scene and you will be disappointed inside of twenty minutes. Fred, Scout Team