Ever opened a game thinking, " I'll play for just a minute " ?
Yeah, that's how this started too.
I recently built Just One More Block, a small browser game inspired by the classic stack games where every tap decides whether your tower keeps growing, or ends the run ;-;
The idea is simple.
A block moves across the screen. Tap at the right moment to place it. Miss the alignment and the next block becomes smaller. Miss completely and it's game over.
Nothing revolutionary, just a mechanic that's somehow impossible to stop playing.
I wanted to build something that felt clean and satisfying without relying on frameworks or game engines, so everything is built with plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript using the Canvas API.
Some things I enjoyed building:
Smooth camera movement as the tower grows.
Blocks that shrink based on how accurate the placement is.
Dynamic colors that slowly shift throughout the game.
Increasing speed to make later rounds more challenging.
A layout that works nicely on both desktop and mobile.
One thing I noticed while testing was that it actually feels better on a phone. Tapping the screen just feels more natural than pressing the space bar, so if you do try it, I'd recommend playing it on mobile.
This isn't meant to compete with polished mobile games. It was simply a fun project that let me practice animation, game loops, collision logic, and making interactions feel satisfying.
If you'd like to try it yourself:
Live Demo: Click here to play
I'd love to know your highest score :))
Top comments (4)
Ok, the shrinking-block idea is meaner than it looks. Ending you on a miss is normal, but slowly narrowing the target means every sloppy tap makes the next one harder, so the run decays instead of dying all at once. That slow squeeze is probably the real reason "just one more" works on people.
That is such a nice way to put it, Boyko. I honestly didn't think about the shrinking-block part like that, but you're right T-T
It makes the game feel like it is getting squeezed instead of ending instantly. Thanks a lot for reading it so closely! :))
It's not as easy as it seems at first glance, I'll probably have to practice a little more, just one more time😁
34 already? At this point, I don't know if I could beat that ;-;
Now comes the hard part: beating your own score! :P