E3 - A Boy And His Blob
By Jamie Love - June 3rd, 2009
I’d nearly forgotten that A Boy and his Blob was originally announced several years ago at E3. If I remember correctly, it was a DS title. Having no idea whatever became of that version, and watching playable footage of the title today, I can easily say that it has all worked out for the better.
The most important fact I can give you about the game is that it includes a hug button. You can actually take time out to simply hug your blob. And as Nick said when I described the game later, that feature speaks to a level of charm that has become essentially non-existent within videogames. It’s a small detail that draws attention to the labour of love the game has become during development.
Everything is hand-drawn, from the backgrounds for forty levels to the characters themselves. Subtle motions come from other objects, as vines sway from actions and birds and bats have been placed within the environments, not as enemies, but simply as additional objects of motion. The talk was of classic animation, such as Winnie the Pooh, which is exactly what I thought of when watching the game in motion.
One other point that was hit upon several times was how the game avoided the necessity of long tutorials that keep players away from from games. Everything I watched was intuitive, with the focus primarily set on puzzle solving rather than combat. There are enemies within the game, but each requires finding a solution rather than a direct confrontation. The pick up and play quality was immediately reminiscent of World of Goo.
It was like a moment of clarity for me. For all the sweetly theoretical ramblings I can give about character relationships within Ico, watching this simplistic dynamic between boy and the blob caught me off guard. It was a rare moment of pure appreciation. Essentially I’m telling you that I was eight years old while watching Boy call for Blob and feeding him jelly beans. In case you were curious, the game will include 15 jelly beans, with a fixed amount available for each level. I saw everything from the ladder and parachute to a shield and trampoline used to solve switch puzzles and progress over various terrain hazards. The game’s currently set for release during the tail end of 2009.
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Hmm, “A Boy and His Blob”, or “A Boy and His Dog-Dragon”(aka The Last Guardian). Tough choices. I guess it all comes down to how you feel about blobs and and dragons.
Me personally, ‘I wants flies in on a Dragons’…
Seriously though, it’s good to know that you don’t necessarily need next gen graphics and insane visuals to be able to form a certain emotional attachment in a game.
This sounds like good news to me. ABOB was one of David Crane’s finest adventure/action games. A lot could go wrong with this title, I suspect. There was a lot of charm ‘under the hood’ of the original game that was rarely noticed - for instance, it had an excellent musical score, as well as an early kind of procedural music generation.. ie, falling would cue up ‘falling music’ and smoothly transition into the score. But I have high hopes that this new attempt will get it right!
I like the original even though playing it today is largely an exercise in frustration. Sometimes I go back to these games and wonder how in the Hell I was able to complete them when I was a kid. Am I getting worse? haha
Game looks gorgeous. I loveWay Forward. I only wish XBLA/PSN was seeing this too, even though I have a Wii. It should be shared.