It's not terrible, but it's not great either. The video represents it fairly well but it is kind of boring and repetitive (which is pretty much the nature of the genre, in fairness), unfortunately, and could use a lot of polish in terms of UI and, well, most of the game. The same could be said of many, many other indie games by single devs or small teams though, but I don't mean to excuse it, just that you have to adjust your expectations.

The core concept is good, controls aren't so good (it could really do with mouse control so you can quickly dart from side to side to collect pickups, it's too slow as it is), the choices of camera angles are just *very, very slightly* different angles. The visuals are nice, but the sound (or lack thereof) sent me to sleep, the boss I just fought kind of sat there and didn't really do much... Also on one level I managed to get the ball stuck in an infinite loop, fortunately my character could shoot fireballs so I used them to finish off the rest of the bricks. The escape key didn't pause the game when I tried to exit my first session but did pause it earlier on so I'm not sure what that's about, I had to press alt-F4 instead.

All in all, it's an admirable first effort but it's not quite there. I hope the developer keeps working on it because it could be really great. Would I recommend it? Well, it IS cheap, but it's still more than the price of a film rental on Google Play... I'm sorry but I can't see myself getting the same entertainment from this as I would from that.

Nicely looking breaker but unfortunately i'll recommened against aquirring this game as the only control options is joypad and keyboard and the result of that is a game that doesnt have the natural flow of handling a game like this should have and therefore becomes next to impossible to actually enjoy for me. I rarely refund games but this is one of the rare occasion where i made such request as i simply wont buy the developers explanation that the game would become too easy with mouse control and that explanation pretty much fall flat in my view as it seems like a poor development choice above all.

Voxel Baller is another of the PONG/Breakout style games on Steam, where a paddle is manipulated to keep a ball in play until a player manages to clear the field, or satisfy a specific objective. This genre of game tends to commonly be offered at a price that may seem higher than most SAS (short attention span) Steam games, and at $7.99, and Voxel Baller is no exception. Yet it seems to be worth every penny!

Where Voxel Baller (VB) differs from some other similar games is the amount of content offered, and several other interesting features. VB is divided into 10 “worlds” (or blocks) of 5 levels each, for a total of 50 levels. Each “world” can be played separately for practicality and convenience. VB offers the typical power-ups, both helpful and harmful, and additional lives are quite plentiful. (I’ve had as many as seven lives at one time, if I remember correctly.) The levels that I’ve seen are quite varied, imaginative and fun, and the two bosses offered up through level 25 (which is as far as I’ve managed) were defeated more often than not.

Several features seem unusual to VB, and in a good way. One is an endless mode, though I’ve yet to try it, and there are six characters to select from to play as. Each game attempt, win or lose, offers both points toward high scores, and tokens that can be used to buy additional of the six characters, each with different abilities. (I’m fond of Gertrud, personally.) Tokens are also used to open the endless mode, and to acquire additional credits.

Interestingly, VB doesn’t offer mouse control; keyboard and controller only. Admittedly, upon first playing I (and other players) issued a complaint to the developer concerning what was considered a significant omission. However, truth be told, if the additional speed and dexterity afforded by mouse control was necessary, this player would never have gotten close to level 25 in such a short time, if ever. I can’t help but wonder if using a mouse would simply make VB too easy to be challenging or fun. Just prior to writing this review I offered the developer an apology for my misunderstanding of what begins to seem as a fully appropriate choice (at least based on one player's experience.) Getting the paddle exactly where it needs to be becomes a greater challenge (especially in light of enemies that cause the paddle to freeze, but often can’t be avoided.)

To this point I’d have to say that my only real issue with VB is that sometimes the field gets so busy and so crowded that the ball can be difficult to spot. But I’ll accept this, rather than the alternative of too little going on, and it’s not something that happens frequently.

Voxel Baller is a game that I expect to spend a significant amount of time on, and hope to perhaps complete some day. Each level is original enough to involve its own difficulties and strategies, and having six characters with different abilities goes far toward six very different versions of each level. The art is amusing and colorful, and in general VB seems to be a well conceived and designed addition to (perhaps) the oldest of all computer games, now about 43 years in the making.

As with most Steam games, offline game time in Voxel Baller is not tracked externally.

It looks very nice for sure, but the paddle controls are not very responsive, not the most pleasant experience. It feels laggy. The sideways perspective is a bit awkward as well. It has fun level design and includes nice details, like being able to bonk the cars that drive past.

Nice one, but:
- Controls too imprecise. The perspective can't be adjusted the right way (for me) and responsiveness isn't good all the time.
- Started the game a second time, no hint where I stopped last time (Level 1-8? Level 2-9?). No idea...

With a little more polishing, could be far more entertaining...

I cannot for the life of me recommend this game. It has so many problems in its execution that made me pull through in order to beat it.
Just to name a few, the game softlocks while retrying after not beating a boss in the sense that it maintains its health bar on screen and so prevents you from finishing the level unless you reset. Also, I've lost count of the number of chugs and collision inconsistences I've experienced throughout my playthrough, which is quite a problem in an Arkakoid-like game. Moreover, the achievement system is all screwed up and led me to reset the game on various ocassions just to be able to recover some of the ones I've earned.
On the other side, the game reaches its highest with the background of the stages, since I believe them to be somewhat nice looking. Plus, the soundtrack is varied to the point that, even after more than 10 hours it didn't feel too repetitive. In case there is a sequel I'd recommend at least not having achievements that demand beating the game multiple times, since it wasn't fun or easy doing so just once.

Dull. Nothing new here except a weird side-on view with no straight-on option.

Get Death's Hangover instead, it shows what this genre can do.

Could have been a fun block breaker but the frame rate drops, laggy controls (character randomly speeding up making you overshoot the balls position), and numerous bugs (I lost count of the number of times the starting ball spawned below the paddle making you instantly lose a life or the ball passes through the paddle) make it impossible to recommend.

The framerate drops below 1fps when you hit more than 1 object. No fun and unplayable, even if the idea is nice