A Boy and His Blob Impressions

A Boy and His Blob is an interesting game to resurrect from the forgotten ether of yesteryear. The NES original paired a young child with an alien who craved jellybeans, and though it was a strange concept, the charming style and tricky puzzles made for a pretty cool game. It has been 20 years since that game was released, though, so it’s about time this plucky pair was brought to modern consoles. Developer Wayforward Studios gave us a look at the latest game today, and we came away wanting a little more time with the blob.

As a young child, you don’t have many tools in your arsenal. You can jump, but you can’t fight enemies or do anything cool. Luckily, you have befriended a cute little blob who can do all the things you wish you could do yourself. And the way you get him to do your bidding is with jellybeans. You carry a bag with you, and when you feed him a certain flavor, he changes into a helpful tool. Some of these have been carried over from the previous games, such as the ladder, trampoline, and instant hole, while others are brand new, such as the anvil or bouncy ball.

You use these tools to solve puzzles. For instance, in one section, a pile of boxes block your path. Above you is a platform where a bull paces back and forth. You can feed a ladder-producing jellybean to your blob, climb to the top of the platform, and then turn him into a hole. The bull will fall down the hole and charge into the boxes, destroying them. Many of the puzzles have multiple steps, so it will take some thought to move ahead.

In the original game, you had a finite number of beans and had to find new bags to unlock new powers. In this game, your supply is unlimited, and you are given the tools you need to pass each level. You will not be able to choose which powers you can take with you, so if you rely on the ladder to climb to new places, you’ll have to think of a new method when that’s removed from your repertoire.

A Boy and His Blob is shaping up to be really cool. The hard-drawn art style adds a lot of charm, and there is even a button devoted to just hugging your blob. We are definitely keeping our eye on this game when it comes out in October of this year.