de Blob Updated Hands-On

Upcoming Wii title De Blob started life as a student project at the Utrecht School of Arts. Tasked with creating a game to demonstrate the 10-year rejuvenation of the Dutch town, one group of students headed off to the local McDonald's to discuss how this project could be expressed in game terms. Many ideas were thrown around, such as a parkour action game where you'd clean up the streets in what sounds like Jet Set Radio in reverse. In the end, though, the idea of painting a black and white city with colour was the one that stuck; the resulting PC game won praise across the Internet.

It was via word of mouth and, specifically, a forum posting that the game was discovered by THQ and adapted for the Wii. Out went the mouse-based controls to be replaced by the motion sensitive Wii Remote, as well as a more characterised version of the main character of de Blob. Now entering its final stages of development at Blue Tongue studio in Australia, it's surprising just how much of the original game has made it intact, with the same basic principle of infusing the monochrome environments with colour. We got a chance to see some of the later levels of the Wii version, as well as play the multiplayer game at a recent preview at the Utrecht School of Arts.

While it's not a game that hinges on an intricate plot, the antagonist of the story is Comrade Black, a commander with the I.N.K.T. army who suffers from an aversion to anything colourful. With this in mind, he goes about removing the city of all of its vibrancy and life. Predictably, it's up to you as de Blob to sort all this out, and you'll join the resistance movement to help put an end to the city's monochrome overhaul.

The main aim of the game is to use de Blob's sticky skills to paint the city a variety of different colours. While this is mostly down to you, you'll have the help of other members of the resistance along the way. Arty will help you learn different painting techniques--not only to cover the surfaces of the city but also to open locks and gates. For example, certain doors will halt your progress unless you fill them with a certain amount of coloured paint. Paint canisters are dotted all over the world, and you can mix their colours to form new ones. Red and green make yellow, while red and blue make purple. As you collect more paint, de Blob becomes larger and slower, making it more difficult to get to those hard-to-reach places. Thankfully, there are water puddles that you can use to restore de Blob's natural colour and just start with a fresh palette.

The game isn't all about colouring, however. You can link together paint combos by jumping from wall to wall because de Blob's stickiness allows him to naturally grip onto surfaces. A character called Zip teaches you how to perform acrobatics, and after a few minutes of practice, we were soon bouncing from building to building without ever touching the floor. Jumps are performed by swinging up on the Wii Remote, while there are also special Z platforms around the levels that you can use to scale great heights.

As you progress through the game, more and more of the I.N.K.T. army will become aware of your actions. You'll not only have to figure out how to destroy the police, but you'll also have to help the citizens of the city by restoring colour to them as you leap around the city. Both actions are performed in the same way--by locking on to a target with the Z button and slamming down on the Wii Remote, you can kill the army and help the citizens. You can also chain these moves together by locking on multiple targets and repeatedly shaking the Wii Remote, which keeps you in the air and less susceptible to attack.

At the end of each level, the city's CCTV cameras work out your overall score. You get bonus points for painting with a mixture of different colours, as well as special prizes for colouring key features, such as trees, landmarks, and billboards. There are some really cool graffiti-style posters that you can see by colouring them in, and there are plenty of secret areas that can only be found by locking onto the Z platforms within the level.

In addition to the single-player, we got to play some of de Blob's multiplayer modes during our visit to Utrecht. There are six different modes in total, of which we got to play two along with our video director during our visit. The first is a simple race to paint as much of the city as possible. Like a similar mode in the Tony Hawk series, the key is to paint new areas while stealing from the other player, reducing his or her score and increasing yours in the process. The other mode is currently under embargo, as the publisher promises a larger multiplayer reveal at a later date. There's no confirmation as to whether they will be playable online yet, but talking to THQ, we expect de Blob will be a local multiplayer game only.

We asked the original design team members whether we can expect an homage to their original game--maybe in the form of a hidden level based on Utrecht. While they were doubtful of whether or not it will happen, they said that they were just happy to see the game out on a major console, such as the Wii. After all, with de Blob as their calling card, the majority of the students have gone on to secure full-time jobs in the Dutch gaming industry--a country that has produced recent such titles as Overlord and upcoming games, such as Killzone 2. The Wii version of de Blob is being published by THQ in September, and you can prepare yourself by playing the PC version which is available for download now.