The 2009 remake of A Boy and His Blob that was previously only available on Wii is coming to PC, Playstation 4, Vita, and Xbox One on January 19th. The game was developed by WayForward (a favorite of mine) and is being published by Majesco (who also published it originally).
A Boy and His Blob: Trouble in Blobolonia was a NES game made by David Crane’s (the creator of Pitfall!) studio, Imagineering, in 1989. It definitely had Crane’s touch on it, as it almost felt like a more complicated version of Pitfall!, but it was rather unforgiving. You were the titular boy and would feed jelly beans to the blob to transform him into objects that would help you overcome obstacles. The thing that was rather punishing about the game was the limited number of jelly beans you were given to the give to the blob. This would make it possible to ruin a playthrough by feeding the wrong jelly beans to the blob, leading you to not have enough to get you through to the game. A rather unforgiving element that was acceptable in game design of that era, but certainly wouldn’t go over very well today.
The remake by WayForward is considerably more forgiving. No limits on jelly beans or lives make it a much more accessible experience to any age. The jelly beans are now selected in a wheel, showing how they would transform the blob, where previously the names of the jelly beans were hints as to the transformations they would cause.
The boy has gained the ability to jump, almost unthinkable that he wasn’t able to previously. Perhaps not the most important thing, but certainly the most adorable, the boy can now hug the blob. While it doesn’t do anything gameplay-wise, it’s certainly heartwarming.
Absolutely heartwarming. Unless you’re dead inside. You monster.
You can check out the trailer below. As an added bonus, if you buy it on the Playstation 4 you’ll also receive the Vita version for free as a cross-buy promotion. As of this writing, a price has not been announced for any of the versions.
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