Retro Review

A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia
Nintendo Entertainment System
1989

If I let my imagination run wild through the caves of videogameville I could not come up with anything as crazy as this crazy beast of a game.

You (a boy) and a sidekick (a shape shifting blob – which resembles a snowman) must fight an evil candy craving emperor and his army to retain your planet Blobolonia with the help of jellybeans and vitamins.

A truly unique puzzle platformer created by legendary game designer David Crane (Pitfall on the Atari 2600 – oh yes) that has an open world feel about it where boy and blob explore subways and a subterranean world full of rock rain showers and bouncing caterpillars.

In order to explore the world you must feed your blob (full name Blobert) jellybeans which will transform it into numerous shapes and objects to enable you to progress through the worlds.

There’s also a black market for vitamins where warped health food owners will only exchange their vits for pirate treasures and vast quantities of diamonds. You will encounter jelly bean conservation issues if you do not remember what each bean can do to Blobert (good memory or paper and pen anyone?), as you curse under your breath whilst feeding him a liquorice bean which makes him into a ladder when really you needed tangerine bean to turn him into a trampoline.

The audio and visual is a little repetitive as you cross back and forth through the same locations and can a trifle wearing on the eye and ear, but it’s a light hearted game with a very interesting concept with open world possibilities which makes it very addictive to play, one session I was in for 4 hours and I loved every minute. The controllers are always great to go back to after handling the mega beasts of the X360 and PS3 pads, the 2 buttons and a d pad are so simple and yet all you really need.

Mr Blobert and Master Boy is also an award winning game, a year after its release it won a Parent’s Choice Award for portraying “positive human values”. So dust off your NES, get yourself some jelly beans and go and save the world with this charming and original videogame.

Ian the Cyan