de Blob

By Lucy O'Brien

Online previews have already compared ‘de Blob’ - purely in spirit - to Portal and I Love Katamari, two independent games with such unique premises they managed to make a dent in a market filled with established household names, graphical one-upmanship and cookie-cut genre fillers (I’m looking at you, most 3rd party games on the Wii). In the tradition of the underdog, it seems fitting an odd little game about a blob whose mission in life is to fill a grey world full of colour will release in a year where sequels of sequels will inevitably reign. With this in mind, unless you are a complete cynic and I hate you, it’s damn hard not to wave its flag.

‘de Blob’ was originally conceived by Game Design/Development students studying at the Utrecht School of the Arts in the Netherlands, as part of a project where they were asked to envision Utrecht’s aesthetic future. The resulting game lets you paint Utrecht using a big fat ball of slime, with the objective of painting 17 recognizable landmarks in the city. Through some act of divine goodness this project attracted the attention of big shot publishers THQ, who subsequently bought the rights and handed the game over to Aussie developers Blue Tongue. Blue Tongue has run a good mile with the original vision, and now the console-ready version of ‘de Blob’ is due for release on everyone’s favorite bases of experimentation, the Wii and DS.

Utrecht is now the fictional ‘Chroma City’, an urban sprawl filled with monochromatic buildings and heavy grey landscapes. These buildings are devoid of colour due to the iron fist rule of the evil INKT Corporation, who believes that ‘colour is a crime’ and other (evangelical?) delights. ‘de Blob’ is the shapeless rebel who is going to open everyone’s eyes to freedom of self-expression, and you take control as he rolls around the city, splattering colour in his wake. Blobby himself is not naturally imbued with colour - he must steal it from INKT lackeys ‘Leech Bots’ by rolling over them and absorbing their secret hoards of internal colour goo. Oh yes, the kids will like this one.

You roll ‘de Blob’ with the nunchuck, make him jump with an upward flick of the Wiimote (or the stylus on the DS) and a satisfying body slam is achieved with a downward stroke. A targeting system means it’s easy to cover huge distances in giant bounds, or lock onto a particular building or enemy. These controls sound simplistic – and they are - but this has given the developers greater freedom in designing challenging missions and complex puzzles. de Blob is fundamentally an action puzzler, and much of it pits Blobster against the clock, the bad guys, and extremely hard-to-reach objects. As nice as it would be to just lazily paint the city pretty, one must keep in mind that the world DOES need saving! Our creative minds MUST be liberated! POWER to the common citizen!

Also, you can’t move onto the next bit unless you complete the challenges.

Considering this focus on the visual, the game at this late stage is looking gorgeous; it’s extremely stylized and cohesive, cartoonish without being childish. de Blob himself has attitude etched into his face, a sarky grin reminiscent of Sonic The Hedgehog that sets a healthy anti-authoritarian tone. The rumourmill has hinted that the final version will run in 16:9 widescreen and 480p modes, which would be wonderful for a game where colour is everything.

Details on a multiplayer aspect are vague at this stage, but there have been rumblings of four player split screen action. As much of the game focuses on getting from one area to the next as fast as possible, expect paint-splattered racing carnage as you play against your friends. The soundtrack also adds to the frenzy: the more paint you heave upon the city the more noise you get, the music grooving in time with your ever expanding artistic vision. When the city is grey and dull, or you lose points, the music is boring and flat. It’s an inspired touch.

If ‘de Blob’ sounds up your alley, the original student-made game is downloadable (if you’ve got the right specs, it’s too demanding for my merge laptop), and gives an addictive taste of what’s to come. If these guys get it right, de Blob will be a breath of fresh air amongst the predictable giants of 2008. Its bizarre landscapes and fresh gameplay make it unique – but it’s ‘de Blobs’ message that really separates it from the pack: stick it to the man, but do it artistically. Rebellious and wholesome in equal parts - I like that.

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