Year released: 1989 (NES)

Number of Players: 1

David Crane?

Graphics: Meh. The main character (a caucasian male) has sprites that curve off rather than come to a straight edge (think Pitfall if you can). The other main character, a snowman (which the game, as far as I can tell, is calling a blob) is rather plain (made up of two white spheres with two eyes and a frown), but there's nothing ugly about it. The backgrounds look life-like in shape, but due to the NES' poor color, they come out horrible (just a bunch of colors strewn about unless you know what they're supposed to be). Other settings, which you will rarely find in the game, are done well and serve their purpose.

Play control: Move with the control pad (left, right, down to go down stairs or ladders, up to go up ladders). This game has an engine in which the more time you spend walking, the faster you go, and if you go too fast, you'll skid like you were in socks on a tile floor. Throw jelly beans with the A button to feed the blob, and he will turn into something depending on the jelly bean. Sometimes you won't throw the jelly bean into its mouth, so you have to know how far away to stand in order to get it in right. Press B to whistle and turn blob back into a blob.

Sound: The sound effects are nice and colorful. However, the same theme plays all the time, so the sound will get old after two minutes.

Challenge: Figure out just how you're supposed to use the blob's different forms. Better yet; memorize what jelly bean does what to the blob.

Gameplay: Yuck. The game offers too many different forms for the blob to take on for you to find out just how to meet a problem. Well, I mean, you only have five lives, and the blob has many more forms than that--trying out the forms that seem that they will work will waste your five lives, at which point you start all over again. The Blob takes on forms like an umbrella, blow torch, rocket (move from Earth to Blobolonia or from Blobolonia to Earth), a hole, a ladder, a trampoline, and others.

Bottom line: A point-and-click game (think Shadowman or Princess Tomato in the Salad Kindgom)... gone wrong. David Crane's A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia (that's the full name of this game) mixes platform and point-and-click elements into a boring yet savage monster.

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