A Boy and His Blob

In the late 80's, "A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia" was released for the NES. It was a very unique puzzle game designed around an AI companion blob thing. The blob would follow the main character around and morph into various useful items when fed jelly beans. While the game has aged poorly due to its very dated interface and utter lack of guidance, it is still well remembered. I emulated it and though I could not get far in it, I was impressed by the blob. The blob had a really good companion AI program, especially for 1989. To this day, sloppy companion AI ruins games. I was very pleased that the Blob at least behaved itself.

So while I was digging through the used game bin at Gamestop, I came across the Wii remake. Now I had some memories of this being released early in the Wii life cycle and getting decent reviews. It was a steal price, so I got it (And Red Steel 2). Now having played some of the original, this game already does a better job with controlling the blob and the jellybeans, though the controls are still somewhat clunky. And it is a really fun idea to have some invincible helper that will get you through the game. But where this game loses me is in the cuteness.

Its just so cute

Now I know this game was not designed for my age group. Its one of the many kid friendly games made for the Wii. But this one frustrates me because of how good its gameplay IDEA was. This game is fairly guilty of holding your hand, with very convenient signs placed about that tell you just what jellybean to use. The puzzles can be rather clever at times, but at no point did it ever boarder on challenging. And that bothered me because this could have been a really tough head scratch-er game. With all the different forms the blob can take, the puzzles could have been very free form with many different paths to the solution. It would have been very fun and if released on computer could have led to a vibrant user community of level design.

I'm not opposed to making games for children with a slackened difficulty level. But imagine if Portal had been done lack that. Assuming the same level of humor, the game would be much less well remembered. Half the reason that game was so popular was the mind bending puzzle mechanic that gave a very real sense of accomplishment for completing the puzzles. We wanted portal 2 as much for the puzzles as the humor. I wanted more from the puzzles in Blob. I wanted to be tested. I especially wanted to play with the blob mechanic even more. I think this mechanic was strong enough to support a more difficult game, even with the cutesy art style for the children. 

It is unlikely that this game will get another remake or sequel. Its had its run. But I want more. That blob was interesting, damn it. And it makes me wonder how many other games were based on very solid and interesting game mechanic, but were forgotten because of some poor design choices.