253 · A Boy and His Blob

• TROUBLE IN BLOBALONIA
• NES Longplay
• Introductions
  • I can’t be the only one getting Steven Spielberg vibes from this game.
    • Indiana Jones font on the main menu
    • Kid teams up with an alien like creature and sets out on a journey bigger than it first appears
• Overview
  • In this puzzle/platformer you play as the boy, who must help blob save blobalonia. Blob can transform into many useful tools and shapes depending on the jelly beans the boy feeds him.
• Gameplay
  • And that’s the core mechanic of this game, the jellybeans and using them appropriately
    • Though the player directly controls the boy, Blobert is controlled by the computer
    • A licorice jelly bean, for instance, will change Blobert into a ladder.
    • The flavors were named specifically as either puns or alliteration to help the player remember them.
    • KNOWING WHICH JELLYBEAN DOES WHAT
    • Whistling at Blobert causes him to revert to his original shape and continue following the boy.
  • Movement is limited
    • Boy is limited to running left or right. The player cannot jump or swim, and if the boy falls too long of a distance, he dies on impact
  • So with that in mind let’s talk about the puzzle solving skills created by a boy who has limited communication and control with his blob
  • Scattered throughout Earth's caverns are various treasures and diamonds that increase the player's score and can be used to purchase vitamins at a drugstore located within the game world.
  • Vitamins can be used in conjunction with a special "VitaBlaster" gun, which is in turn used on Blobolonia to complete certain tasks.[5] Also found on the map are extra jelly beans and peppermints, which increase the player's lives.
  • The adventure between Earth and Blobalonia
    • And the unique feel between them?
• Development
  • This game was created by David Crane who thought a boy accompanied by a morphing blob was unconventional and wanted to try his own hand at implementing useful tools for the player.
  • David made the game in allegedly just 6 weeks. Not suggesting foul play, David had a whole team at imagineering making the game.
    • A MIKE AND HIS PODCAST - TROUBLE IN CHRONOLOGY
      • The game was released just prior to Christmas in 1989 as Absolute's first game on the NES. But the info we have referred to a January 1990 release so possible that we have the WIDE RELEASE date.
  • He’s well known for his Atari 2600 games, you might know PITFALL, DRAGSTER, and GRAND PRIX
  • But he’s also going to make some games our Patreon subs keep calling out like Bart vs The Space Mutants and Bart vs The World.
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • A Boy and His Blob was followed by a sequel on the Game Boy titled The Rescue of Princess Blobette.
  • A Boy and His Blob: Jelly's Cosmic Adventure was was being developed by Pipe Dream Interactive (Majesco's in-house development team) and was scheduled to be a Gameboy Advance release in 2002, but was cancelled due to publisher Majesco's financial troubles .
  • in 2005 an A Boy and His Blob remake was being developed for the Nintendo DS. AND this unreleased game can be found online
  • After two failed attempts to bring the series to Nintendo's other handhelds over the yemars, a re-imagining of Trouble on Blobolonia was developed by WayForward Technologies and released by Majesco Entertainment on the Wii in 2009.
• EGL
  • This is the kind of game that has enough uniqueness to sell someone like me on the concept of the game before I even play it. Controlling a helpless boy who requires the assistance of a blob you cannot control, great! Unfortunately, I feel like the jellybean system and lack of multiple solutions made the possibilities in my head feel really limited during gameplay. It’s a neat idea and it does translate msot of it’s ideas into the game, just not in a grand enough matter to keep me hooked.
• NEStalgia Byte - All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros. (a look at MANY SMB games)

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 A boy and his blob, trouble in Blobolonia.

00:19 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. It's a silly title, but I can't be the only one getting Steven Spielberg vibes from this game with that Indiana Jones font on the main menu and even maybe some ripoff music from Indiana Jones as well in the beginning. But it's also like a kid teaming up. I don't think that's Spielberg. Spielberg is Indiana Jones. Well, it's George Lucas, right? But I think he was also, I think Spielberg was also. Yeah, he was attached, but like, I don't know.

00:55 Forget the whole Indiana Jones thing for a second. The whole like kid teams up with an alien like creature and sets out on a journey bigger than it first appears. Like, that's a Spielberg thing. It's very Spielberg. It's actually crazy to me that I hadn't thought of that before because the first thought I had was like, wow, those first few notes of that song is the Indiana Jones theme. What I was thinking is more a boy and his dog, which is a post-apocalyptic pastiche of society.

01:22 It's very mean spirited and it has absolutely nothing to do with the video game, but it rhymes. It rhymes. It's like poetry. It rhymes. Yeah. There you go. That's your George Lucas reference. Yeah. Every frame is so dense. That's a deep cut.

01:42 A boy and his blob is a puzzle platformer where you only play as the boy who must help the computer blob save Blobolonia. Blob can transform into many useful tools and shapes depending on the jelly beans the boy feeds him. And I feel like if I leave it at just that, that's funny enough to get us started because

02:04 David Crane, who wants you to know he made this game, it's called David Crane's A Boy and His Blob on the main menu. That is a unique start of an inception for an idea of just, you know, I think that this boy is going to feed this alien blob jelly beans and that's how he'll change into other shapes. Yeah, there was definitely some kind of drug experience that preceded the creation of this game to put the jelly beans and the space blobs and the boy himself together.

02:37 And again, I just want to state that in the manual, you will just hear references to your main character as just the boy, which I think is hilarious. And I don't know why, but yeah, it's, it's very off the wall. It's a very unique setting that we've been put into here. And for the jelly beans, like that's the core mechanic of this game, the jelly beans and using them appropriately to transform the blob into whatever you need. So though the player directly controls the boy and Blobber, as I think he's called, I've been calling him blob, not his full name.

03:18 He's controlled by the computer. So depending on what jelly bean you feed him, let's say it's a licorice jelly bean. He changes into a ladder. And apparently, according to the manual, the flavors are named specifically as either puns or alliteration to help the players remember them. The licorice one, I guess I get like, um, it, it, the, I don't know why I'm thinking like snakes and ladders for some reason, but like twizzlers and some of them are better than others. Just the alliteration.

03:46 But yeah, before even reading the manual, it was like, it was just really fun to discover that, you know, to be like, uh, you know, like tangerine turns into trampoline. It just like, it just, they kind of sound the same or like the punch punch. Yeah. The punch jelly bean makes a hole because you punch a hole like that. That was fun. And it made it like a little, you know, light puzzle element. And they want you to discover what each jelly bean does, right? Like it's not spelled out for you. I don't, I don't think it's in the manual. Could anybody confirm that?

04:20 I didn't read it. So I was learning as I was playing. I did eventually read it. And, uh, it is not, it does not tell you what does what in the manual. Right. So it's all experiment. Yeah, exactly. It's all about experimenting.

04:33 However, you know, and we can, uh, I think we should just talk about the transformations and their usefulness. Um, it's, uh, it's not really up to experimentation, right? Like you, you need a very specific jelly bean to do a very specific thing each time. Uh, you can't like get creative and say like, oh, to get to the next platform, like I'll use the umbrella and fly. Like, no, you, you need the ladder to climb up to the next platform. Uh, so there's always like a specific answer. Yeah. I think that it is pretty, um, what's the word I'm looking for?

05:13 There isn't a lot of freedom, but I can imagine that some of these can be solved in several ways. Like, especially if it's like a ladder or a trampoline, I'm sure that like they can be sort of used either or, but it's unlike a lot of games that we've played that have this, have a more strict illusion of, of choice and an expanding, uh, like inventory where like, while, you know,

05:42 playing with the umbrella might not actually work for like the, the specific puzzle you're trying to solve. You can still play around with the umbrella. Like you can still, uh, jump around on a trampoline, even if it's not in a place where a trampoline is exactly what you need.

05:59 Like you can still do these things and in, it's at least a step above a lot of games that we played where the abilities are more like key items than anything else. Yeah. That's a good point that, uh, it's not, um, a location dependent that like if you fed blob a licorice and he's like, this isn't the area where I need to be a ladder. So nothing happens. It's like, he'll just turn into the ladder and it could be completely useless to you.

06:23 Yeah. There were times I like, I think, I think it's safe to say the intended use of the umbrella is to like jump off of something and not have fall damage. Yeah. But then, um, but there are times where there's like rocks falling and you could just dodge those rocks like you would think to do in any video game, but you can also use the umbrella there to protect yourself from the rocks. Like there are a couple of things like that that notice, but even with the intended, um,

06:50 like methods of using or solving each little puzzle, like it still feels like you're being creative. Like, yes, they, they came up with like, this is probably what you should do here, but you still have to use your like creative, uh, problem solving to decide like, okay, what do I know about what each of these jelly beans do? And like, which one could maybe help me? Like there's a, there's a part where you're trying to get back up to the surface. Cause a lot of the game takes place in like the sewer and underground and the sewer grade is still there. And there's an apple jelly bean that turns it into a, like a car jack, an apple jack.

07:21 And, uh, you know, that one took me a while, but it was satisfying to be like, oh yeah, I can like knock this, um, this lid off of the sewer. Yeah. I'm not going to give a one-to-one comparison to portal, but like even portal with the amount of freedom that that allowed you, like certain concepts were the solve. Like once you had that, you solved the puzzle and it wasn't like there were 15 different ways to do it. Like a lot of puzzle games as, as much freedom as they make you think you have, they are still kind of one-to-one.

07:58 So is it fun to then like feed jelly beans to this blob? And then, cause remember your character can only walk left and right. Like your player can't jump. They can't swim on their own. If they fall from more than like, I think it's actually one and a half screens, anything beyond that, they'll die. Uh, so they really need blob to get around, but is it fun to call blob over via whistle,

08:23 have him stand in a specific spot, feed a jelly bean, and then test out, uh, you know, what you think can work? I say that it is. I mean, I think that it's very, um, it could get repetitive if the game were longer, but for the most part, until like the, towards the end of like the phase one of this game where you're, where you're just collecting money, I was mostly not, I did not get like tired of the loop. Towards the end, there was a couple of times, cause I was on the last couple of treasures that I was, you know, by nature of hunting down specific treasures by the end, it's going to be harder and harder to find cause there's only a few left.

09:01 So like, then I was getting like a little worn out of, of the gameplay loop, but for the most part, I feel like it, that part of the gameplay loop ended at exactly the perfect time where I wasn't tired of it because I had always been discovering something new up until the end of that.

09:16 I also like just, uh, on a more general level, the, the companion nature of the blob. Like he's kind of an idiot. Like he looks so dumb. Like he's, he's, he really is dumb. He looks like a snowman. Like, yeah, yeah. But like, just look at his face. It's dumb. And the, yeah, yeah, but it is your friend. He's your dumb friend.

09:39 And you'll, you'll be like, come here, like, come here, get over here. You'll whistle him over. And it's not like, it's not perfect. It takes a minute. He's slower than you. And then he does his dumb bounce over to you and he'll get like too close and like, Hey, give me some space. I need to throw this at you. And then he'll, I mean, like, these are things that should be very annoying, but because he's just your dumb blob friend, it makes it, uh, kind of special and it's very endearing. And so I think that it really milked that. But especially when you consider this, you know, setting and, uh, the type of gameplay that, uh, a boy and his blob sets out for you, this would be a tonally weird game.

10:24 If, uh, you were fighting enemies often and needed like blobs assistance in beating them up or something. But for the, you know, mostly the, there's very limited amount of enemies, uh, uh, like the hopping snakes and falling rocks and stuff like that. That's stuff you have to avoid. It's not about killing them or anything like that. And so for the most part, it's this fun platforming, uh, reminds me almost of, uh, the original Prince of Persia, you know, where it's like, you don't have any cool weapons or anything. It's just about figuring out how to get to the next area or, you know, via exploration,

11:02 figuring out like, what do I need to do in order to get over to that next screen? And that's like, that's the part of the experimentation is, is that there isn't an open, you know, yeah, there's some secrets and stuff, but there isn't an open endedness to what you can do.

11:18 Mostly, you know, when you need to transform blob into something because it's just that there's a, you know, you're down in the caves and there's a gap between there, the next two platforms. And so, you know, that you need to turn him into the like bridge that gaps between them, or it's a little bit of an uneven thing. So you've got to maybe try to get up to another platform and use the hole to fall through to get to the other side. Like it's not, it's not guesswork, I guess is what I'm saying. You don't have to just assume that there's a puzzle everywhere. You'll know when they present themselves.

11:51 On top of that, though, it's not guesswork for sure, but there are built in secrets to where like, usually they're not only unless I just didn't find any, I don't think there are any that we've seen in other games where it's like hit this specific tile of the wall that you would never be able to see otherwise.

12:08 But it's like, oh, there's a ceiling above me. And then somewhere up there, there's a little gap and like, hey, I wonder if I can use a trampoline up there and like you might just get a reward for going up there. Yeah, I appreciate that they were, it was more intuitive than some game that was less creative in the, in like the general design that made it like, all right, now find, yeah, find the spot and you're just going to have to have your bouncing buddy just go from pixel to pixel searching for it.

12:40 And I think the playfulness of the transformations, it varies. So like the bridge and the ladder are just very specific uses that once you figure them out the first time, you'll know when you need them. But the trampoline is something cool where like you bounce on it once, you get like a little hop. And then if you just stay there, it's like the next hop's even bigger. And the hop after that, it's like, it gets really almost an infinite.

13:06 Yeah. It's like comedic how, how high you jump up. And I think, you know, more of the transformations could have been like that, but the, you know, what are you going to do with the ladder? I suppose to make it a comic book. Yeah. I mean, just the nature of him trancing form, transforming, trancing form, transforming into a ladder is just silly enough for that. But yeah, I mean, cause there are, what, how many are there? How many transformations are there? There's a lot. There's like, there's like 15 or something. At least a dozen. Yeah.

13:32 There's a lot. And I'm, to this day, I'm still trying to figure out the connection between strawberry and bridge. Me too. That's like the only one I don't know. Strawberry bridges forever. That's what I was thinking actually. Is there a bridge in strawberry fields forever?

13:47 Cause otherwise I'm out of luck here, but, uh, Applejack, like I could, give me that all day. Yeah. Root beer rocket. It was cool. Right. Coke, uh, cola bubble. I get it. And the ketchup jelly bean. We talk about that for a second. Yeah. That's a cool one. Go for it. Yeah. It took me a while. Cause that's the only one he won't eat. So I was like, okay, maybe this comes in the late game. You gotta use it. You gotta get, you gotta unlock something before he'll eat it or something.

14:12 But, uh, I do wish the manual was a little less on the nose with this because it would have been really cool to figure out. But when I read the manual, it does say like, um, you know, the, the only, the only one, uh, you won't eat is the ketchup jelly bean. And then later on it says like, be careful because if you like jump down several screens and

14:28 the blob can't get to you, you know, you're going to have to find a way for him to catch up, but it spelled it like ketchup. I think it would have been cool if it just spelled it like catch up. And then you have to figure it out yourself. Like that's a cool one. Like I, so if you throw a ketchup jelly bean when the blob is not like near you, he will just appear there. He'll catch up to you. But isn't that weird since he hates it?

14:48 Yeah. Maybe he's barking at it. Maybe he's like, he's like, ah, I saw somebody laying a ketchup jelly bean down there. Yeah. Um, and the other one that I found cool that serves a similar purpose, if you, if you climb, if you trampoline your way up like many screens, um, you can use the honey jelly bean to turn him into a hummingbird and the hummingbird can fly. So he'll fly up to you. But like, it's just so there, I just wasn't expecting.

15:14 I mean, I'm up at one point seven or eight screens above the blob. You throw the jelly bean down and like the quote unquote camera or whatever, it just keeps going screen to screen, just watching this jelly bean fall, fall, fall, fall. And then like land in the blob's mouth. And then he flies up to you. It's very satisfying and just so unexpected.

15:32 Yeah. And the, the little animations that are like your dumb idiot friend kind of adjusting himself to your throw. Like if you're really close, he'll have to jump up and get it. And like, if you're far, like if you're going several screens down, he'll still like make the adjustment and try and catch it. And it's not like, it doesn't have to perfectly fall on his mouth. I think that was fun. Yeah, it was cool. The one thing that bugged me a little bit is like, if you're like a step too far away from him, it still clearly looks like the jelly bean is like hitting him in the face, but you miss him and then he gets all mad. So you gotta like make sure you're close enough to him and you don't want to make him mad.

16:13 It's a weird, unconventional, uh, like story that carries out in terms of like the gameplay beats, you know? So you start off just roaming around, uh, outside of your house and then eventually you see the subway platform and you can walk down into it. And then you might, you know, realize like, oh, if I use the punch jelly bean and create a hole and I'll get down to the caves. And then, you know, a good chunk of the game is just spent down there as you're looking for these, um, you know, secret treasures or, or some most, you know, there's a good deal of them out in the open too.

16:52 You're collecting this treasure, which might, you might not be aware of like, what's the purpose of this money. And then when you realize that the money is to purchase vitamins to then get a, uh, to travel to Blobolonia and use the vitamins to, uh, eventually shoot your Vita blaster, uh, which is the gun that blob transforms into.

17:14 Uh, it just, we're used to games that are like, okay, go left to right and, um, talk to like an NPC who will tell you, uh, you know, like, oh, you, you might want to do this or you might want to do that or don't go here. You know, like they're giving you hints. There isn't anything like that. There's just this cave with all this treasure, this store that sells vitamins and the rocket that brings you between earth and Blobolonia. Yeah. There's a lot going on.

17:46 I hadn't even thought of it. I mean, can you, can you just get on that rocket right away and go to Blobolonia without a gun or anything? I think you need to get the gun before you can do that. That makes sense. Cause I didn't think I was just trying to the whole time. I was like, what am I going to use this rocket for? And then at the end I kind of realized, cause I knew you would go to Blobolonia eventually from maybe the manual or something. So then I realized, oh, it's a rocket ship or, you know, it's a rocket you ride on. But the beginning of the game is very interesting. It's very, um, unorthodox, but it's also so different than the end of the game, like totally different. Yeah.

18:20 So that adventure between earth and Blobolonia and especially the unique feel between them, I was mentioning that on earth and, and for most of the game, you're just not fighting things. But then all of a sudden, um, Blobolonia, you have to, you know, use the, turn them into a blaster and start shooting these, what look like snow pellets, uh, to, that are in your way to, to progress. And I, I just felt like something about the gameplay change there. And I'm not saying it was for the worse or anything. It just was surprising. I wasn't expecting all of a sudden to be like a running gun.

18:55 Yeah. What it felt like to me was that, um, like a lot of, like a lot of games today, like small, like indie games will like do this thing where they deliberately start out as one thing and then surprise you by changing it. And a lot of them are like dating sims or whatever that like change it. Like what's the Doki Doki Literature Club or whatever that like suddenly like changes into something totally different.

19:14 I'm just saying a different level than that, but like, yeah, I wasn't expecting to suddenly be, yeah, be firing a gun at, I think they're marshmallows and like popcorn kernels and, and cherries and stuff like from the beginning of this game. I thought the whole game was going to be solving these puzzles, but it turns out that solving the puzzles is like you preparing for the final battle, which is like this weird, like the last 25% of this game is just like this weird final level.

19:37 But even near the end, I mean, it definitely adds these gunfighting sequences, but there is still some puzzle platforming happening, uh, between gunfights. Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's not, I think to Joe's point though, it just feels like once you get to Blabolonia, the mission's a little, uh, bigger in scope. You know, that's what I was talking about with like that whole, like kid teams up with an alien and it seems like it's like, you know, me and this, like we're just best friends. Like we're just hanging out. And then all of a sudden the government wants to take the alien away and the movie gets really serious, you know? That's true. That's kind of what's going on here.

20:16 So, uh, my, my larger point was just that, you know, in today's age without looking at game FAQs, it's hard to say like how much of this is spelled out for, um, for the user. And I'm not talking about like solving the puzzles that that's pretty straightforward. And easy. I just mean this whole idea of not having almost any guidelines in the actual game. Like you're just free to do whatever.

20:45 And I could imagine like renting this game as a kid and not even understanding the cave part, like just not getting it and being like, Oh, I'm supposed to be collecting treasure. Like, wish I would have known about that. Like, it's funny that there's nothing in the game that like pushes you in any particular direction. It's all outside information. Yeah. I mean, there's enough, there's enough, like, and I wouldn't say, I wouldn't call them direct hints, but there are enough things that you kind of go, huh?

21:13 Like the fact that there's a health food store at the, at the end of that street that you'll eventually have to go and return to, to get those vitamins, to get to the outer space times. Um, and I think that there's enough there in what you should now know as a puzzle game. Um, that like, Oh, maybe I need to go back there. Like there's enough unique about it to, uh, that, that you would imagine that there's a reason for it to exist. And I'm not saying that it's, that this is an obvious game. It very much is not.

21:46 Um, but I don't, I wouldn't say that it's impossible to like happen upon. You get the Eureka moment if you did it, I'd say. Yeah. And like the, the manual, I mean, I know that's still an outside source, but the manual does give you like enough context to like, like if I had read the manual first, I would know what my goal was right away. Like it does tell you, um, like that there's this other planet with this evil emperor that you, that you have to defeat. You have, but you have to save up your money to buy enough vitamins to be able to attack him because he's like a junk food based evil empire or emperor.

22:21 Um, so like it does give you that story. And it's a charming little weird quirky story in the first place, but like it does give you the context where I think after reading the manual, you would, there wouldn't be too much of a question that like, okay, you have to collect money, buy vitamins, and then somehow get to this other planet.

22:41 Yeah. And I'm on board with everything you both just said. I think I was just saying how absurd the game is in the sense of like monster party was also a pretty absurd game, but just followed many familiar video game tropes that it's not like you would get lost or not even understand what the goal is to complete the level. And, uh, you know, Joe, you're right that like the manual spells it out for you, but I saved myself by saying that I rented the game and, uh, most likely you wouldn't get the manual. Although we had a debate about that. If the games, uh, at blockbuster game came with the manuals or not, I think it's a toss up. I think sometimes they did, uh, you know, sometimes the kid before you didn't bring it back or something.

23:26 Did anyone look at the boy and his blob speed run for this game? No. Uh, it's done in like two minutes. So how's it, how's it go? So, uh, I mean like, you know, at that point, right. I just tell anybody who's interested to watch it cause it's one of those games done quick ones too. So, um, what, what I understand is that they immediately use the rocket to go straight to Blobolonia. And then once you can just do that, I don't know if they're doing something funny. I didn't actually try it in my own game, but let's just say that you can, right. That you can't just do that.

24:03 You don't, he doesn't have the Vita blaster, you know? So how's he going to get past all these enemies? True. But there is something you can do to glitch out almost all the enemies at the very start. Like, uh, you know, he's dodging them for the most part, but then there's a little trick you can do. And, um, and then there, you know, you could just basically warp to the end of the game and literally see the credit screen. Like walk across it? Walk across the credit screen.

24:36 Okay. That's fine. I think that's pretty funny. Like, um, I think that's pretty funny that the game even has like, like that feels like that's not usually a thing, right? Like the credit screen is like its own thing where like no, no other character would be, but it's like apparently embedded into the game. So therefore he's actually walking across not only the credits, but the text that says he beat the game before he beats the game. It's all funny stuff.

25:01 That, that reminds me of, uh, I, I don't know if it's like this in Fallout three, but in Fallout new Vegas, um, if you know, you use console commands to give yourself control of your body, uh, in like the epilogue. Cause like in the epilogue of Fallout, it tells you like all the effects of the things that you did with each, uh, group of people or whatever. And it's just a slideshow. So you'd think that it's sort of like a separate instance. The game is over and you're just watching a, a video.

25:33 But if you use this console commands, you can then control your body and you are in a room that's like a theater and there's a projection of that slideshow in front of you. And if you walk behind the, uh, if you walk behind the screen, there is an NPC talking and giving you the, the narration and you could talk to him.

25:54 And so I just, that whole like, oh, the, the, the game exists within the game, uh, that reminded me of that. And I think it's funny. Right. And for some reason, like watching the speed run and seeing the boy and the blob walk through the end credits almost, you know, remind it just, it further enforces the whole, like, this is a movie that we're playing. Like we're playing the boy and his blob, the movie, the game. And they're like just actors who, who knowingly are just jumping across different scenes. Cause you know, movies aren't filmed in order. Oh yeah. I forgot about that. I don't know if that's true. Movies are just pictures.

26:34 And so are games. It's true. So we mentioned that the game was created by David Crane and he really wants you to know that, but David Crane, you know, uh, he's well known for his Atari 2600 games. And I think as soon as I say which one he's most well known for, you'll put it together. But, uh, Pitfall, Dragster and Grand Prix are three of the big Atari 2600 games. I definitely see Pitfall in this game, uh, at least an expansion of it. And now I'm thinking that that boy kind of looks like the guy from Pitfall, like color scheme. He also did, uh, Detroit become human, right?

27:14 That's what I thought when I first saw it. I was like, no, that's David Cage. Okay. Yeah. I don't think David Crane's done any like new games, uh, anytime recently. Apparently, according to David, the game, it was made in just six weeks. I'm not suggesting any foul play because he had a whole team at Imagineering making the game alongside him. But it was one of those things where Nintendo like got behind it and they needed the game for the holiday season or whatever.

27:42 So they rushed it in. And that's what I'm going to get to next is that this is, you know, there's a, we're playing a boy in his blob, but we're getting into a little segment. I call a Mike and his podcast trouble in chronology because this game was released just prior to Christmas in 1989.

28:03 Uh, Michael, but the info that we have, the info that we have a great, great Intel referred to a January 1990 release. So it is possible that the date that we have here is the wide release date and that they were able to make the New York or LA or both, or like, you know, maybe specific cities all across North America in time for 89, just in time for Christmas, but that it didn't get a wide release until January 1990. And that's why it's listed as such. So do you think you've made a mistake?

28:37 No, I don't feel bad at all because we're covering it. I get more nervous. What keeps me up at night is that we're just going to miss one and then we're going to get to Wario woods and it's going to be like, wait a minute, this is only 670 something games. Like we, we missed one. And then we're going to have to like redo the show over. Yeah. Oh, well, I don't care if they're, you know, for what it's worth, if all the games came out on the same month, we're just doing them alphabetically. I'm sure you guys have caught onto that by now, but like Nintendo doesn't say like, all right, well this game starts with a letter A. So it's coming out on January 1st. It's like, it doesn't work like that.

29:14 David Crane also made what is very popular on our own Discord Patreon page. He made Bart vs. the Space Mutants and Bart vs. the World, which is just, it comes up a lot more on our Discord than I ever thought it would.

29:30 These are games I have not played, so. Yeah, but we will play them. They're NES games. I'm looking forward to them. I mean, yeah, maybe Bart vs. the World is like, you know, you play as Bart and the World is played by a computer and you team up or something. That's sort of how most one-player games are, yeah.

29:49 Yeah, yeah. On the sequels and spinoff side, A Boy and His Blob was followed by a sequel on the Game Boy titled The Rescue of Princess Blobette. And it's just a Game Boy game, so it's not, you know, nearly as involved or anything. But it was a success. And then there was two canceled games. Came pretty close. A Boy and His Blob, Jelly's Cosmic Adventure. I don't know who Jelly is, but I'm sure we would have met them and learned all about what they were doing on Blobolonia and then getting into all sorts of space mischief.

30:25 That game was going to come out on the Game Boy Advance in 2002. But it was canceled due to financial troubles, which seems weird because if it's almost done, just finish it and make the money. I don't know. And then in 2005, which is only three years later, A Boy and His Blob remake was being developed for the Nintendo DS. But just based on this box art alone, I don't think this would have been the hit they were thinking it was going to be. Something about the art direction's all wrong and just makes it feel like it's for very young kids. So this is an unreleased game as well. Well, same thing. They're citing financial troubles, but it's like maybe he just released these freaking games. He wouldn't be so underwater, Majesco.

31:04 But the unreleased game... It was Majesco. Yeah, yeah. At this point. Yeah. Like they somehow either teamed up with David or bought the IP or whatever, but they're making these games. And the DS one, not the Game Boy Advance one, can be found online now. So you can play like as much of the game as they had finished at the time in the demo.

31:24 But after two failed attempts to bring the series to Nintendo's handhelds over the years, a reimagining of A Boy and His Blob was developed by WayForward Technologies and released again by Majesco for the Wii in 2009. And this was a game that I remember even being like, oh yeah, like I've heard of this title somewhere. Like I should pick up this Wii game. I never wound up doing it, but I've only ever heard good things about it. So I can't say exactly how much it changed, but it is at the very least, it's an eight hour long game. So clearly much different than the two minute and 10 second speed run or even the modest like two hours that it might take someone to fully experience on the NES.

32:08 And that was a Boy and His Blob? Like that was a DS game? No, it was a Wii game. Sorry, Wii. So it was still that IP. Okay. Yeah, yeah. No, it's actually a remake of the very first game. So, you know, you're doing the whole thing again, going down into the caves, collecting the treasures, going to Blovolonia, blah, blah, blah. Is there any... Blah, blah, blah.

32:32 Blah. Are there any fun like jokes and quips that they say, or is it just they're both mute like in the NES game? You know, I don't know if there's talking. Okay, good. I have a hard time imagining the Blob talking. Yeah. But I will tell you that like he has, there's new power ups.

32:54 Like, so it's not just, it's not a one. That's my point is that it wasn't a one for one remake. It was just like, we're going to make this game again, but we're going to make it so much larger. So like there's more jelly beans or whatever and different things that you can use. And it probably does a better job of spelling out the whole freaking game for you and giving you tutorial after tutorial after tutorial. And it's got this whole like Scribblenauts art direction with it. That's kind of strange for a Wii game. Okay. Sounds disappointing.

33:21 I was always looking to buy it and then I just never did. So I'm responsible for Majesco's financial troubles. And, you know, according to who you ask of our listeners, I'm also responsible for our essential games list troubles because I keep certain games off the essential games list. And maybe, you know, I'll do it again today or maybe I won't because we all get to vote in the essential games list.

33:49 Sean, it's your last time going first. This is it. Also, we wish everybody a happy new year. Yeah. Happy new year, guys. It's December 30th. For you to be a good fellow. Yeah. Have a good time with your blobs. You know, have a good time together with your blobs. Don't let your blobs get wet. Just remember, even if 2022 wasn't good, now you have 2023 to look forward to and 1990 at the same time. So if 2023 turns out to not be so great either, just pretend like you're in 1990 with us.

34:23 Sean, you have a vote? I do have a vote. Again, like, I'm a big fan of your dumb idiot friend. Like, he's very charming. I like hanging out with him. I wish there were more interactions that you could have with him other than feeding him jelly beans. He seems to just be using you for jelly beans. And that's sort of where I draw the line. Like, once a relationship sort of shows that, like, it's more transactional than anything, that's where I start to get, like, weirded out. And like, oh, maybe this isn't the person that I fell in love with. And we might have wasted the last few years of our lives together.

35:06 But Boy is Blob. I think that it's very unique. And I appreciate the puzzle aspects. But I don't know. It didn't feel complete to me. It has all the charm in the world. And a lot of these games that have a lot of charm don't have enough for me to say that, like, it's got all that I want. So I'm being very vague here. And I'm giving the game a disservice by being this vague. But I am saying that this is a definite play it. But I will not be voting it essential. This is the kind of game that has enough uniqueness to sell someone like me on the concept of the game before I even play it. Like, I was just reading up on it. I was like, oh, it's gonna be a blast. Like, I'm this helpless boy.

35:54 And somehow this alien blob is my best friend. And we're gonna help save his home world via the powers of jelly beans. Like, great. I'm in for it. Unfortunately, I feel like the jelly bean system and the lack of not like solutions in general, but just like the possibilities in my head felt really limited during the actual gameplay.

36:15 And maybe a more open game would have also led to a lot more glitches and making it really easy because it's too obvious to solve it because you can solve it however you want, you know? Hey, that sounds like that Scribblenauts game I was referencing, right? Where it's like, all of a sudden, just if you can think of it, anyway, we'll solve the game. That's maybe a little like what I was looking for here with the blob is just a little more

36:38 freedom of exploration and freedom of what I can do with him. It's a neat idea. And it does translate most of its ideas in the game, just not in a grand enough matter to keep me hooked. So I get why this one kind of has like cult classic status.

36:53 People fight about whether this game is actually good or not. And I would say, yeah, it's good. I just don't think it's one of the greats. Joe? So, Sean, I really, what you said resonates with me a lot. I think there's just like, there's a lot that's valid about this game feeling like it needs a little more to be like a complete game.

37:11 And there's a lot of like little, not negatives, but just like little things that feel like they're missing in this game. But there's still just something about it that really, really is fun to me. Like, I don't, I like, I like it despite its like shortness. And I know you guys too, too. But like the, I guess I kind of was wrestling with this a little bit. Like, I don't need it to be, I'm okay with it being like a bite-sized adventure.

37:40 So like that part, I'm still okay with. And like, yeah, there are just a lot of little things that feel like they could be elevated. But just the idea alone and the charm of, I think using the jelly beans is so cool. And like the, the like asymmetry to the first and second half of the game is just interesting and keeps you like engaged in this weird way. And it's just, I think I'm part of the cult, I guess is what I'm saying. It's cult classic.

38:12 I know this is not, you know, I don't have any power here, but I think I am going to throw it an essential vote. It's weird because like, I do have things that I feel like it could have done a lot better. But like, it was just a lot of fun to me. I just feel like you're not going to get this anywhere else either. I feel like you should play this. I'm going to say it's essential.

38:31 You're allowed to have fun, Joe. Yeah. And you know what? Like, I'll replay it before our best of 90 in three years. And, and, you know, we'll see if, if I want to fight for it to go on. Yeah. And you're, you're also allowed to like stay in like a relationship that's just like, you know, good for now and not forever, you know? Right. Like, you know. Yeah. Never treat a relationship like, uh, like it's going to end until you know it's going to end with your blob. Yeah. Specifically with your blob. I was going to say, I don't think that the blob at the end of this game is going to like not stay in touch. Right. Like he's going to go live on his own planet now. Like it's safe again. And the boy probably doesn't want to live on blob-alonia, but.

39:13 And you have shared trauma too. So I feel like, you know, that factors in. Well, that's, you know, that's not very healthy, but. I get what you're saying. That factors in. So it's like you're, uh, that might be why, that might be why. That might be why it won't work out. Yeah. I'm learning a lot. The trip on the rocket was relatively short too. So it's not like they can't visit often. That's true. You're right. Thank you. It's funny that. Yeah. Blob-alonia has been in front of us this whole time and we just never noticed.

39:40 Or that's like earth 617. The one like that's right next to us. We're almost everything's the same, but they have this planet called blob-alonia. That's like right next to the moon.

39:49 Well, if you want to hear more stupid conversations like that and not referring to the whole episode, mostly episode was pretty good. But if you want to hear more stupid stuff like us riffing on ideas that we just kind of come up with on the spot, look no further than our interview on the boss rush network. We did an interview with them. I'll try to remember to put a link in the show notes here for it, but it's very easy. You just type in Nostalgia Boss Rush Network. It's on podcast. It's on YouTube. YouTube, you get to see our faces. Maybe you play a game with yourself where you try to like guess who's who before we reveal who we are.

40:20 Spoiler alert, we all have facial hair. So that won't be the easiest way to give it away. If you didn't think any of us had facial hair, that's also kind of interesting. And let us know in the comments on www.nostalgiacast.com. Go to the contact thing and be like, I thought you guys were all clean shaven. That would be a really interesting subject title to receive in my email box, even if you didn't believe it. Just do it anyway. But seriously, our interview on Buss at Buss Rush Network is really cool because we're not just talking about our chronological exploration. We're talking about all things video games.

40:50 And we're going to continue to talk about all things video games, whether it's on other podcasts, on our podcast, or on our Patreon, patreon.com slash nostalgia, where we do all sorts of cool episodes. We did at the very end of this year, right around the time of this episode posting, we did a Game Boy launch episode, too, covering all things Game Boy. So if that sounds at all interesting to you, it just costs $1 for one month. And then you can say, I'm never giving these guys another penny again, but just $1 and you can hear that episode. Pretty cool. Pretty cool.