Multiplayer

Multiplayer, along with single player, comprise the two modes that The Blockheads can be played in. Multiplayer allows players to play with other players on worlds. On iOS, there are three ways to play with others: Game Center, Local Network, and Online Server. On Android, only Online Server is available.

Game Center

Using Game Center, the player can invite one friend to play with them on the player's single-player world, join another player on their world, or, in 1.3 and later, be randomly matched with another person using auto-match. To invite a second player, their device must be on the same version of iOS and have the same version of The Blockheads as the player's and must have Game Center notifications turned on. Game Center multiplayer is not available on Android.

Game Center supports both voice chat and text chat. Voice chat can be disabled from the avatar menu, as well as text chat notifications. If the connection is deemed by the app to be too slow to handle voice chat, it will be deactivated automatically for that session. The nickname and avatar used by the game is the same as the one used in Game Center.

Local Network

In version 1.3 and later, Local Network can be used to allow up to five other players to play with other players on single-player worlds on the same network connection. It also allows devices to join locally hosted server worlds. It does not support voice chat, but does support text chat. The devices may use the same Game Center account, but must specify different nicknames when hosting and joining. Local network multiplayer is not available on Android, but locally-hosted worlds may be joined on an Android device using Online Server.

Online Server

See also: Server

In version 1.3 and later, Online Server can be used to connect to any Blockheads server. It allows up to 32 players (16 on most servers from blockserver.net) to play at once. It requires the server's IP or domain and server port to connect. Nicknames and avatars can be chosen at the server connect menu. The connection option may be used to connect to locally-hosted worlds as well.

Servers can be hosted using the Mac server app. Windows and Linux versions are in development. A third-party service known as BlockServer can also be used to allow players to host servers.