Little Kitty, Big City
Little Kitty, Big City
Game
Game2017
Block'hood
Developer Plethora Project
Block'hood is a 2017 city-building video game developed by Plethora Project and published by Devolver Digital. It was released on May 11, 2017 for Microsoft Windows, MacOS and Linux. Plethora Project developed a spiritual successor Common'hood, released in 2022. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
193 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon, Lemmy) · newest Oct 1, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
69
Fresh
130 positive · 58 negative
95% range 62–75%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 130 | 58 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
5 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
934 of 1,257 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 193 · most liked firstFun aesthetic, but the game is incredibly slow and it can be somewhat obtuse with its mechanics and resources until you realize it's just a spreadsheet with pretty graphics. There is no simulation, it's just a matter of balancing the spreadsheet. If you enjoy that, then this is a nice relaxing game. If you want a city builder or simulation, this game is a thumbs down.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →this game is fun, but i have to give thumbs down because there's no saving system during story mode! it sucks very much that you have to redo the chapter once you log out the game smh, i read on reddit and steam community, all complaining the same. It's just ridiculous to force people to keep open the game all the time if you don't want to redo all over again
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is a great resource managing and building sim. The design is clean and all the building possibilities are endless. Although I'm going to give this a thumbs down, since I've found a bug that won't let me complete chapter 5. I tried 3 times to find just one decayed block I needed to find to progress and everytime I tried I just couldn't find any block that would complete it. Plus, there is no saving during chapters, so I had to completely restart everytime for some decayed block that…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game has great potential, but the developers abandoned it and did not continue its development. I really like the concept of this game—building a city and ecosystem on a single 'cube,' where the city's development is only on a vertical level. The interface feels very clunky and not user-friendly. There is a lack of deeper integration between the functions of individual buildings and more developed micromanagement—which ultimately should be the main focus of the game, since it’s about…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Keep away from Plethora project games (this one + "Common hood"). They start a (promising) game, program it until it hits a somewhat alpha stage ( = many bugs, unfinished resource flow etc.), sell it and just never finish it, then recycle the game idea for their next "project" It's just a money grab
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Edit: common'hood is out and is a buggy mess. Swapping this to negative since the dev clearly didn't learn anything from this release. If you've ever worked on a project and went "Eh, that's close enough I guess?" and submitted it at 60% complete "because Cs get degrees"... congratulations, you know what block'hood's devs did. If you like games about the environment and "green" things, then you'll probably get a lot more out of this. I had fun playing with systems and creating loops and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Each "hood" (map you build in) has a limited number of blocks for you to build in. The number of hoods you can create is also limited by the overworld map. No sustainable gameplay loop due to building limit. No reason to specialize hoods because despite promises of hood trading, there is no way to trade resources between hoods. There is also no reason to specialize because you can get all the resources in one hood. Meh, another consumable throwaway game because the developer didn't bother to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Block'hood doesn't know what it wants to be. The idea of treating a city as an ecosystem is interesting, but the way it is executed doesn't make sense. You have a "bank" for each resource, and you gain or lose the resource based on the how much is produced or consumed by your buildings. This makes sense for cash or water or wheat, but not so much for fresh air or labor. You can't accumulate labor to be used later. The game seems to be stuck between city manager, zen builder, and ecosystem…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As a big fan of city&resource-management games I can only and sadly say this game has a lot of potential wasted. I really liked the graphics and the general aesthetics. However, the gameplay and the game mechanics are just truly bad. When playing one can get the impression that the authors actually just focused on trying to sell you the modern and "diverse" "eco" ideas. It hence focuses too much on eco concepts rather than just on enjoyable city sim, which should be the primary game focus. I…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Appears to be abandoned and fundamentally broken.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's kind of the game from hell for completionists. I've tried finishing the final Story arc /three times/ and been unable to whatsoever. The first time, it was because I exited the game /foolishly thinking/ that my several hours of work to create a utopia would be saved. The second time was from a glitch that made the camera rotate relentlessly and would not STOP, which was very pretty and would have been cool to use as a screensaver, but made actually working on the neighborhood difficult to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you do not have a mouse you cannot play the story mode as it asks you to scroll zoom (which is what the tutorial should be for). It only allows you to use the mouse wheel to progress. The zoom keys do not allow progression and a touchpad does not work.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a cute little sandbox builder, sort of. The actual gameplay aspect is so unfinished and glitchy that it doesn't really make much sense. It looks like the devs abandoned this game in favor of Common'hood, which also appears to be abandoned now and filled with game-breaking glitches. Fool me twice, I guess.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game feels like a nice and original concept at first, but it is very clunky in practice and many mechanics just don't make any sense. As an example, there is a "reclaiming" mechanic, in which you have to use a bunch of resources to restore a ruined block into a functional one. Or you can just delete that block and place a new one, which is both absolutely free and instantaneous. The whole game is like that. You look at things and look again and try to understand how they make sense or…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Abandonware, stay away.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →One of the most complicated city building simulators I've seen, which has a fairly simple storyline, but which is inspired by the truth that you need to live in harmony with nature!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →City builder with a focus on sustainability rather than profit. It doesn't have a whole lot of depth, but if you can pick it up on sale for $5, I'd recommend it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hurts to give this a thumbs down, but it's really hard to recommend. I forget if I was gifted this game by a friend or picked it up since I'm into city-builders, but after years of seeing it sit in my library I decided to boot it up one cozy winter night. I started off by playing the tutorial, and got a feel for how to play the game. Next thing I decided to do was play the story mode - the entire thing (especially the first level) is another guided tutorial. That started me off a little…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I would've loved to recommend this game. I honestly love how this game looks. Unfortunately, this game feels like the developers made this game and just abandoned all development. It has that unfinished feel to it. The biggest thing that this game needs fixing is the building UI. • There is no Undo and Redo feature. • Every time you build something, instead of a simple click, you have to click and hold. This makes it very frustrating when you are building large projects. You can not change the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Blockhood is one of those games that's hard to give a clear thumbs up or down to. I don't regret buying this one on sale and trying it out - definitely lots of good, well designed things - but it has some fatal flaws. First of all, the way blocks "decay". Each block has resource inputs and/or outputs (water, electricity, labour, various wastes, fresh air, etc). If a block doesn't have enough inputs at the end of a cycle, it starts to "decay". It can only decay 8 times before the block becomes…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The price says it's a finished game, but it's not. As other reviews indicate, there are some bugs, gameplay balance issues, and an overall sense that there is more to come... but it never does. The moral of the story is don't pay full price for "early access." It's not a special insider pass, it's just unpaid beta testing.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've played this game for about 10 minutes in total. The reason I cannot recommend this game is because of the way the camera works. It has a "free camera" that allows you to rotate, pan, and zoom freely around the world. The issue is when you rotate, it always rotates around the center of the fhmap, and not around the center of your screen. I've never seen any camera control like this, and it makes for a very annoying, non-intuitive, immersion breaking experience. And the worst part is this is…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →One of the worst games I've ever played. DO NOT BUY. Game appears to be no longer developed. How it won those three awards are beyond me. Metacritic rating is way too high. The story is unplayable. Like many others, I have 1 tile to clear and it's NOWHERE to be found. I deleted EVERY possible tile. I clicked on EVERY tile. There was no option to fix the tile. There was no colour except white in dataviz. What a joke. Don't buy it at $16.99. Don't buy it on sale for $4. Don't even download it…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Had fun playing this game. interesting and challenging puzzle building for those up for it. Got all achievements and took me 27.1 hours.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →With every try you will end up with a different city, some weird creations will be coming from your brain - as when you play - it turns off and just goes smoothly into the zone, its like Bonsai - when you are calm your creations are ordered and nice, when you angry - its chaotic with lots of weird stuff all over the place.... Actually the best way to play this game is when u do not plan at all, just put stuff randomly and then start connecting them, making this narrow corridors all over the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Cool idea, bad UI. Most used interface? Lower right part of screen. Unique long chains needed to build/succeed, no ability to search quickly or use chains effectively without, essentially, rote memorization. Bucket things together -- production versus consumption. Even if the tiles produce both, let people search for what they need quickly. 80% of my time was just wasted looking through nearly identical tiles for the one needed, and worse when the tile needed was known but impossible to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Followed Block'Hood for years. The designer put a lot of work in to make a statement about the place we have in the world. In its current state, probably its final state, there are a lot of rough edges and misleading things in the user interface. But you can successfully play the story mode and many challenge levels. Sandbox world mode with interacting 'hoods is buggy and incomplete, but individual sandbox mode 'hoods do more or less work. The actual gameplay could use some balancing and…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The idea of this game is great. And you can tell a lot of time went into the design, music and game mechanics. However, laying tiles is clunky and slow and gives the game a frustrating feel. The tutorial is overly long and very repetitive. It feels like a lot of time went into designing the inner mechanics of the game, and then they just threw in the building mechanics in a weekend. Everything about this game says it should be awesome, but for me the frustratingly slow tile laying makes the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a long time since a game (or any app, for that matter) manages to crash so completely that it reboots my PC. The game is unplayable on Linux.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Doesn't work on Linux
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Picked it up from the Devolver sale. An interesting premise and neat gameplay, undercut by logic flaws. I hate to open with my complaints, but they're what I originally came to say: - Blocks that should require sunlight, like trees and solar panels, can be built over and remain functional. Perhaps the Access mechanic sort-of deals with this, but I suspect I could nonetheless build a sunless area and have a tree thrive there. - The World Sandbox's nature, such as trees and grass, don't actually…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →one of those beautiful little games to fall in love with (or even just hate). deep but not pedantic, crafted with love by capable, clever hands. satisfies the eyes and the mind, simulates worlds that seem to be made of living, organic legos. small worlds to get lost in, or to contemplate enjoying the chilling time.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a curious sim builder. I kind of like it, story mode glitched on challenge 5 and it's a long mission.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Oh, my god. I have never played a game with such severe oversight. And it hasn't been updated for seven years. In one of the "story missions" there is a decayed block hidden DEEP within the central pillar that can not be demolished, and the goal requires you to revive EVERY SINGLE BLOCK on the map. How the f$%k am I supposed to reach to that singular block if you don't let me demolish the external ones?? Also, you can't close building inventory. Because of that, you'll always have something…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Frustrating UI and slow tutorial that couldn't keep my attention, unfortunately.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is a very good Management game of resource in the first 1 or 4 hours of play.... but after have it for very long time and no see an important update of the system or the block... is very.. boring. You could see 4 slot options of blocks in the different options of buildings, service, nature and energy or production. but only 2 you can use.. and thats it. not expect more. because since the launching of this game. no updates to unlock or add blocks.... or something.. it's a shame for…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's been a long time since i played this game. But i noticed it was on sale, so i wanted to make a review to let people know my thoughts of this game. I would like to mention that i didn't suffer from '*almost' any bugs during my playtrough. A different take on the sim build genre. Build a hood and it's environment out of "premade" blocks. This game has no build costs for anything so you can spam (almost) everything you want to get it build. (There is a block's and size limit.) So what is the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →....so just how bad is this game? I did not even pass the first 2hours of play time before it malfunctions and crashed. Still familiarising myself in the sandbox mode..... Because I love building games, I tried uninstall-reinstalled it. Nope, the bug was still there. A grey box on the upper left hand with APPLES written in it....... Please fix bug, its a good game. Shame if no one plays it cos of some stupid bug.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A good game but the chapters are incredibly broken
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I generally don't write reviews for all of the games I play. But I want to write couple of sentences for this game. This is game is fun. If you love town management or production chain management games, then this game is worth a try. it has distinguishing charm that will make you play multiple times. This looks casual yet you have to play carefully otherwise your mini block'hood will fall apart. This is very cheap game with respect to what content you'll get. Buy!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →[@django](https://kowelenz.social/users/django) [@linux\_gaming](https://lemmy.world/c/linux_gaming) I kinda wonder if you're going through the same pipeline I did. Where initially I was looking for "city builder but solarpunk and bicycles" but found what I \*actually\* want is "resource management for a community, but you're incentivized to balance your production to your needs, and disincentivized from overproduction". and like, both of those are niche genres atm, but they're distinct.…
unlabelledView post →Unplayable on the Deck 🥴😟
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not the cute, fun little management game that it appears to be. Gameplay isn't intuitive and the campaign is too slow to bother with.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Would have loved to see this game taken further; really unique concept and interesting gameplay, along with simple yet still nice graphics and a good amount of replayability! Unfortunately, I can't recommend this game, it's been abandoned and the last update came years ago. There's so many QoL improvements that are missing - like more tutorials and better camera settings, more intuitive UI and more settings - along with a large amount of clearly planned content that's missing, indicated by…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Interesting & challenging bit game takes bit learning from in game tutorial , BlockHood wiki online and YouTube videos. Hope they make a number 2 with more buildings , resources & bigger landscapes.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game doesn`t work on Ubuntu!! Why! I pay because this is game, be should worked on Linux.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Should be fun, instead frustrating as the tutorial doesn't register the buildings and constantly gets stuck.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've enjoyed playing Block'hood, a lot. The gameplay is very interesting. There isn't a right way to play it, you can choose many approaches to improve your city. And if you want to switch your ecological choices midgame it's possible and always fun to do. You even can make a paradise for wild animals and don't build any human infrastructure. The game wants to put forward an ecological message, however it isn't moralizing at all. At one point Block'hood was a very promising title. BUT · since…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Unfinished, dead game. Crude graphics and meaningless game mechanics. The sandbox mode is surprisingly pointless.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Could not save game in story mode requiring complete restart of game. As others, game feels unfinished and unpolished.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Block'hood is okish as a game, IMO, but it's absolutely about that. store.steampowered.com/app/416210/B...
unlabelledView post →⠄⠄⣿⣿⣿⣿⠘⡿⢛⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⢻⣿⣿⠃⠸⣿⣿⣿⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ ⠄⠄⣿⣿⣿⣿⢀⠼⣛⣛⣭⢭⣟⣛⣛⣛⠿⠿⢆⡠⢿⣿⣿⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ ⠄⠄⠸⣿⣿⢣⢶⣟⣿⣖⣿⣷⣻⣮⡿⣽⣿⣻⣖⣶⣤⣭⡉⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ ⠄⠄⠄⢹⠣⣛⣣⣭⣭⣭⣁⡛⠻⢽⣿⣿⣿⣿⢻⣿⣿⣿⣽⡧⡄⠄⠄⠄ ⠄⠄⠄⠄⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣶⣌⡛⢿⣽⢘⣿⣷⣿⡻⠏⣛⣀⠄⠄ ⠄⠄⠄⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣦⠙⡅⣿⠚⣡⣴⣿⣿⣿⡆⠄ ⠄⠄⣰⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⠄⣱⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄ ⠄⢀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄ ⠄⣸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠣⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄ ⠄⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠿⠛⠑⣿⣮⣝⣛⠿⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄ ⢠⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣶⠄⠄⠄⠄⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡟⠄
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a unique city builder game which is really good. I def. need more practice playing, but im sure once I get the hang of it, I can build those massive cities. Great graphics and music. A challenging game which is great. It provides a detailed tutorial which is excellent. Look forward to trying to do better! A+ Review at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRWTcTiLEYY&t=2s
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The campaign is fun, but the later levels get buggy and difficult. I wish the tutorial was better because even after it i struggled. i understand this is a puzzle game but it shouldn't be annoying but fun to solve. It's a 'meh' kinda game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The sheer amount of emotion put into this game is unparalleled. You can feel the authors thoughts as you progress through each level of the story, dedicating this game to his brother who passed away.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Unplayable on Linux, I get nothing but a white screen even after an upgrade. I was able to barely run this at one point, but not now.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →When I bought this game I read it as blAck'hood so i thought it was something different. but it's still good.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I find it strange how this game calls to me to be played. I don't usually make it far, I haven't made anything worth showing off. But the mechanics and possibility are all there to make something really aesthetically pleasing and functional. The management of ALL resources and wastes sets this aside from something like Simcity, giving Block'hood more structure and helps direct the player better. I'm not sure it's "fun" as I would say compelling. If you have a head for design, this is for you.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →More like a chore than a game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →any games that became homework especially part of your project will be frustrating and exasperating.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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