Thank you for this! We completely agree with the critisisms and love the idea of throwing in some random objects. I wish we could have made it feel a bit more skill based but we'll work on it. Cheers!
I see. In that case, you might want to consider ways to make the consequence of actions more deterministic and consistent. Skill-based games need to reward mastery, and mastery is generally accumulated via the degree of comprehension and amount of practice. So more often than not, precision of execution is demanded of the player in such games. To make that feel fair (yes, even in single-player experiences), the game’s action->consequence outcomes need to also be precise and predictable.
If you were to add a “straighten out” action with a cooldown, where all resting blocks would be snapped into the nearest orthogonal grid alignment, then it could produce a mix of “creation is messy” and “refactor!” combo. Or auto-snap upon the block settling (post physics) could also work, just to list a couple options. If piling high is kept as the goal, then gapless lines can be rewarded with either a perk (i.e. get a special piece next, charge up grid-snap meter faster, prevent interference, etc.) or an interference to the opponent (i.e. raise water level, knock out a random piece on opponent’s side, stop time only on opponent’s side, etc.). Some of these could create emergent gameplay scenarios where moving your own block to the other player’s side might be (rarely) beneficial as well, if you decide to continue to allow cross-side placement.
The key is probably how to make player intention translate well to consequences. Execution precision is important in skill-based games, yes, but player intent still has to have more agency than external factors that feel outside of player control. The reason why games like Gang Beasts works well is because they deliberately parody this aspect for hilarity. And yet, even so, they actually sustain a very fine balance between what is in control (player controls) and what is out of control (ragdoll physics) in that game. Similar things can be said of Getting Over It (@#$% ^&*, Bennet Foddy) as well.
I do believe you can take it either way between skill-driven physics game vs. parodic party game, or maybe even a sort of balance like Gang Beasts. Good luck with whichever direction you decide on.
P.S. Credit where it’s due. The random objects idea isn’t mine but rather from having seen this legendary video: https://youtu.be/gZmnLe0EcXM