A Boy and His Blob

The wonderful graphics and smooth animations make this a beautiful game to play. The pace is rather slow, more focused on solving puzzles than hard-packed action. For most of the puzzles you can take your time and figure out what you need to do without worrying about enemies attacking. Most levels in all four world follow the same mechanic: guide the boy and his blob through a level while having Blob collect 3 treasure chests. You have to use the different shapes Blob can take, objects from your surroundings and the boy himself to solve the increasingly challenging puzzles. At the end of each world you'll have to fight a Boss, but these are relatively easy to play once you find out the weakness of each boss. When you finish a level with all three chests found, you can play an bonus "challenge" level. The challenge being that you usually can use only one or two Blob-shapes. That makes the puzzles in these levels less intricate, these levels are more about skill and timing. All in al a fun game for a few hours of not-too-difficult gaming.

A Boy and His Blob is one of my all-time favorite games for NES, with its big, imaginative worlds to explore, and oddball puzzles and mechanics. This takes that and breaks it into individual stages that are laid out more like obstacle courses. Jellybeans are now infinite, but you only have certain flavors for each stage, so the puzzles are a bit more deliberate, and there's no inventory management to worry about. Here, the worlds are different, ant not quite as visually interesting, but still well made. The basic mechanics are solid, and the different blob forms are fun to play around with, though there are a few mechanical frustrations with some of them. Some of the later stages are very long compared to the others, and can be a bit of a slog. You do also have boss fights, and while some are frustrating, and most require some trial and error, they're not insurmountable. The whole game has a very charming feel to it, as well. The hand-drawn characters are cute, and the blob's forms and animations are also very cute, if sometimes goofy. There's even a button to give him a hug; it serves no purpose, but definitely adds to the charm. The music is orchestral, and while it's nothing you'll be jamming out to as you cruise down the highway, it all fits well enough, and it does have the main theme from the original game. Not much story, not that you need it, but it's all told in short cutscenes with no actual dialogue, so it's something you can enjoy regardless of age or language barrier.

This game has great potential, but part of the execution makes it unplayable (for me). First of all there's little to no tutorial. Nowhere does it tell you what key to press to put down beans (used to transform the blob) and once you've figured that out it doesn't tell you how to switch beans (tab in my control scheme). This might work on console where you have less than 10 buttons and room to experiment, but it works less well when you've got over 100 keyboard keys. No where does it tell me I can throw beans either, I had to find out through a walkthrough. Finally, in the later levels when you've got a lot of beans to select from you need to press two direction keys at once, again something that's fine if you've got a D-pad but not on a keyboard. I also feel control of the boy has been sacrificed to make room for the animation (which are fantastically fluid and beautiful). This results in the boy moving very slowly making even the easiest puzzles very frustrating. The extremely clever concept of the game and the beauty of the design makes me really want to love this game, but I just can't bring myself to play it anymore than I have (almost 25% through the game) due to these issues.

My Video Review is available here: https://youtu.be/uGuH0mxL5XU Is A Boy and His Blob a game that is worth trying or should you better look somewhere else? The game undoubtedly has many positives - original game concept, imaginative level design, interesting puzzles, relaxed game atmosphere, balanced difficulty, beautiful and cute graphics and nice orchestral music. However, one can also find some downsides that make that game experience not so pleasant - no story that one could follow, the lack of tutorial, clunky controls, long waiting for blob sometimes and technical issues with graphical settings. Thanks to the short levels, not so high difficulty and cute graphics the game is suitable for family playing and school aged kids will for sure enjoy the game and practice their logical thinking. It’s a pity that there is not any cooperative multiplayer that would make the family fun while playing even better. Pros: - game concept - level design - puzzles - game atmosphere - difficulty - suitable for children - graphics - music Cons: - no story - no tutorial - controls - waiting for blob - technical issues - no local multiplayer I think that this game is a worthy successor to the old game for the NES console with the same name and despite struggling with setting the graphical setting in the beginning and regular struggling with the game controls I have enjoyed the game and felt really relaxed while playing. I am therefore giving A Boy and His Blob Thumbs Up and VideoGaming Father’s Index 7 out of 10 - recommended with some discount.

A Boy And His Blob is more than just a puzzle platformer... it's a story about friendship. A Blob crash lands on Earth and finds a boy to help him rid his home planet of an evil emperor. You play as the boy, using the Blob as your toolset to help you solve puzzles and get through each stage of the game. The puzzles are straightforward and the levels are pretty linear, but that's not a bad thing. Your goal is to feed the Blob different types of jelly beans which cause it to transform into different tools that you can use to reach different areas of each stage and kill the enemies in your way. Each stage has 3 chests for you to find. The animations in the game are cute, with my favorite one being the hugging of the Blob, which you get an achievement for doing 5 times. This game is perfect if you're just looking for a simple and relaxing puzzle game. My only complaint about the game is that once you have the Blob transform into a tool that you use to reach the next area of the level, he stays transformed until you call him back to you (there's a button for that). I found myself having to spam that button over and over again, until the Blob finally became responsive and came back to me. This does slow down what is otherwise a fluid experience traversing each stage. Other than this, I have no complaints. I highly recommend this game.