01 / HANDS-FREE
100% HANDS-FREE EXPERIENCE
We believe gaming is for everyone. NodBlocks is designed from the ground up to be fully inclusive. From the moment you launch the app, every single action is performed without touching the screen. Here is how it works:
Navigating menus
Simply raise your eyebrows to scroll down through the menu options, and open your mouth to confirm your selection.
Playing the levels
Physically turn your head left or right to move blocks, raise eyebrows to rotate them 90 degrees, and open your mouth to hard drop. Look up to pause the game at any time.
Typing on the leaderboard
Even text input is completely hands-free. Cycle through the alphabet using your eyebrows, and open your mouth to lock in a letter and seamlessly type your initials on the global high-score board.
02 / THE KEYBOARD THAT ISN'T
FIVE LETTERS, NO KEYBOARD
This is what that looks like. Nothing here is typed: the brows step through the alphabet, the open mouth locks the letter in.
CYCLING
03 / WHO IT IS FOR
WHO THIS IS FOR
The short answer is anyone whose hands are not available — for whatever reason, and for however long. That covers more people than the phrase “accessible game” usually reaches:
- Players with motor disabilities or limited hand mobility, for whom a touchscreen is either painful or simply out of reach.
- Players with a temporary reason — a cast, a healing injury, a flare-up of RSI — who lose most of their library for weeks at a time and get it back later.
- Anyone whose hands are busy: eating, holding a sleeping child, on a treadmill, wearing gloves in the cold.
The design does not treat these as separate cases. There is no “accessibility mode” to switch on, because there is no other mode. Hands-free is not the alternative path through NodBlocks; it is the only path — which means it is also the path that gets tested every single time the game is played.
04 / AGAINST THE ALTERNATIVES
WHY NOT JUST USE THE iOS TOOLS?
iOS already ships serious accessibility features, and for most of the system they are the right answer. Switch Control drives the interface by scanning through elements until you select one. Voice Control takes spoken commands. AssistiveTouch, with head pointer tracking, moves a cursor you then dwell to click. All three work across every app on the device, which is exactly what NodBlocks does not do.
What they share is that they are a layer on top of an interface built for fingers. A scan cycle or a dwell click costs time by design, and a falling block does not wait for it. That trade is invisible in a settings screen and decisive in an arcade game.
NodBlocks takes the other route. Nothing is translated: the head turn is the move, the brow raise is the rotation, the open mouth is the drop. There is no pointer, no scan cycle, no dwell, and no touch interface underneath waiting to be driven. That is why the timing holds up at arcade speed — and it is also the honest limit of the approach, because it buys you one game rather than a device.
Use both. Apple’s tools for the phone, this for the puzzle.
05 / SETUP
SETTING IT UP ONCE
Roughly three minutes, and only the first time.
01
INSTALL IT
NodBlocks is free on the App Store. It needs an iOS device with a TrueDepth (Face ID) camera and iOS 16.0 or later.
02
PROP THE DEVICE UP
Stand it at roughly face height with the front camera pointing at you. Nothing has to be held. On iPad, check that nothing rests over the camera array in the bezel — that is the most common reason tracking looks broken when it is not.
03
FIND REASONABLE LIGHT
A normally lit room is enough. You do not need a lamp pointed at your face, but a dark one is where tracking degrades first.
04
ALLOW THE CAMERA
ARKit reads facial blend shapes on the device, in real time. Nothing is recorded, stored or sent — the privacy policy spells out exactly what that means.
05
LET IT CALIBRATE
A live onboarding tunes the tracking to your face before the first block drops. After that, brows move through menus and an open mouth confirms. You will not need the screen again.
06 / THE LIMITS
WHERE IT STOPS WORKING
Every claim above has an edge, and a page that lists only the good half is not much use to someone deciding whether this will work for them.
- It needs a TrueDepth camera. No Face ID camera, no face tracking — there is no fallback mode. That rules out every Android device, every iPhone before the iPhone X, and every iPad outside the recent Pro line.
- It needs three movements. Turning the head, raising the brows, opening the mouth. Head turn is the one that moves pieces across the board, and nothing else is mapped to it today. If that movement is not available to you, the game is not playable as it stands.
- It needs light and a clear view. A dark room, a covered camera, or a device lying flat on a table looking at the ceiling will all read as broken tracking.
- It is one game, not a system. Everything outside NodBlocks still needs the phone’s own accessibility tools. This page is not claiming otherwise.
- The leaderboard needs a connection. Scores are not queued offline and uploaded later, because that would make cheating too easy. Play works offline; the board does not.
If one of these is the thing standing between you and the game, that is worth an email rather than a shrug. There is no ticket system and no bot — it is the same person who wrote the game, and this is the kind of mail that changes what gets built next.
07 / QUESTIONS
QUESTIONS
DO I NEED TO HOLD THE PHONE?
No. Prop or stand the device so the front camera can see your face. Once the app is open, nothing has to be held, tapped, swiped or touched.
WHICH DEVICES CAN PLAY HANDS-FREE?
Any iPhone or iPad with a front-facing TrueDepth camera on iOS 16.0 or later: iPhone X and newer, iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation and newer), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and newer), and iPad Pro 13-inch (M4 and newer).
DO I HAVE TO SAY ANYTHING OUT LOUD?
No. Nothing is voice controlled. The whole game is silent input, so it works with the sound off and in a room where you cannot speak.
CAN I PLAY IF I CANNOT TURN MY HEAD?
Not at the moment, and it would be dishonest to say otherwise. Turning the head is what moves pieces across the board, and there is no substitute mapped to it today. If that is the gesture that rules you out, write and say so — one developer reads that mail.
DOES IT WORK IN A DARK ROOM?
Poorly. The camera needs to see your face, and low light is where tracking degrades first. A normally lit room is enough.
IS MY FACE RECORDED?
No. NodBlocks reads ARKit blend shapes such as jaw open or head turn, in real time, on the device. No video or image of your face is saved, stored or transmitted, and none of it reaches analytics or advertising networks.
DOES THE LEADERBOARD NEED HANDS?
No. Your eyebrows step through the alphabet and an open mouth locks each letter in, exactly as the demo above shows. It does need a connection at the moment you finish, because scores are not queued offline.
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
Nothing. NodBlocks is free, with no ads and no pay-to-win. There is no accessibility tier to buy, because hands-free is the only way the game is played.
08 / THE POINT
DESIGNED FOR INCLUSION
By completely eliminating the need for tapping, swiping, or holding a device with your hands, NodBlocks offers a truly accessible puzzle environment — a real arcade challenge rather than a simplified one. The board is 11×22, there are thirteen piece shapes, and on even levels the whole thing turns over and blocks start falling upward. None of that was made easier in order to make it reachable.