Thanks so much!!
I’m pretty happy a couple people have said they thought the game felt balanced, and I did intentionally try make shields something you might not pay immediate attention to on your first playthrough. The damage calculation is actually pretty simple; blocks always deal 1 damage per tile they hit, 2x/3x/5x tiles multiply that damage by their respective amount, the yellow n-x blocks deal an additional 2 or 3 damage on top of the base damage depending on how many tiles they hit, and as a balancing act shield block always do just 1 damage.