[Wii] A Boy and His Blob announnced, developed by WayForward (Shantae, Contra 4, LiT)

elkatas

Nintendo Power has released some previews of upcoming magazine, and amongst them is:

A Boy and His Blob



Unfortunately the page with screenshots was run through mosaic filter, so it hard to see details. But it looks to be 2D game, which probably means WiiWare release. Further details will be added here when they come up.

NEW DETAILS:

- Developed by WayForward (Shantae, Contra 4, LiT)
- Retail title

MagicPrime

urahonky

Oh man, this NES game was so awesome.

Canada is 1337

Tangerine=Trampoline.

cloudeagle

Holy goddamn awesome.

Edit: Hmmm, gamefaqs is saying this is for the DS. Yeah yeah, gamefaqs, I know. Occasionally they do get something right.

c4tch

what a wonderful remake - this has potential to be massively successful

elkatas

cloudeagle wrote: »

Edit: Hmmm, gamefaqs is saying this is for the DS. Yeah yeah, gamefaqs, I know. Occasionally they do get something right.

And goddamn I'm feeling old.

Olivaw

Holy shit, talk about an obscure remake

I never managed to beat that game, either

cloudeagle

elkatas wrote: »

cloudeagle wrote: »

Edit: Hmmm, gamefaqs is saying this is for the DS. Yeah yeah, gamefaqs, I know. Occasionally they do get something right.

And goddamn I'm feeling old.

Well, there we go.

And I loved the ketchup jellybean in the original. With it, you could cause your blob to... catch up with you.

troublebrewing

I hope this turns out looking good. Wiiware would be great, DS even better (for me)

I also never beat this game on the old NES but I do remember liking it a lot.

Brainiac 8

Canada is 1337 wrote: »

Tangerine=Trampoline.

Ketchup = Catch up!

I loved that game, and still have the NES cart to it.

Day one purchase for me!

elkatas

Guess what, according to NP's site, the developer for the game is WayForward (Shantae, Contra 4, LiT). Hype went up by notch!

algorhythm

Did the jelly bean names really match (or sound like) the Blob function?

..D:

Arcibi

Am I the only one who hated the NES one with the fury of a thousand burning suns

For me, trying to solve a puzzle in it went something like

1. Feed the damn blob one of every jellybean until you find the one you need
2. Realize the blob isn't standing on exactly the right pixel you need him to be, so spend a decade positioning the boy (who apparently slathered the bottom of his shoes with a mixture of Crisco, KY jelly and WD-40 before heading out on his grand adventure) just right to get the blob to stand where he needs to
3. Die because:
   1. you didn't turn the blob into an umbrella or a bubble or whatever protective thing you're supposed to have that prevents you from being killed instantly upon entering the next screen
   2. you've never been to the next screen and weren't ready for the monster or the pit or whatever kills you almost immediately if you haven't memorized that particular area
   3. you've used up all of the jellybeans you need to solve the next puzzle due to too many iterations of step 1
4. Repeat until game over screen

I remember renting the game once as a little kid and hating it, so I tried it again recently and ugh

If it's being developed by WayForward then maybe it stands a chance, but until proven otherwise A Boy and His Blob will always be complete horrible distilled to its purest essence to me

Brainiac 8

Let me see some of the ones I remember:

Here are the jellybean flavors for the original:

Licorice - Ladder - Climbs to higher places. Real licorice ropes can be very long.
Strawberry - Bridge - Helps cross gaps. The connection is obscure, but it may be a pun on "drawbridge."
Coconut - Coconut - The screen follows the rolling coconut.
Cola - Bubble - Allows safe underwater exploration. Bubbles are in cola drinks.
Cinnamon - Blowtorch - Burns webs. Cinnamon is spicy and blowtorches are "hot."
Apple - Jack - Lifts up objects. This refers to a drink made from cider called applejack, and to the popular cereal "Apple Jacks".
Vanilla - Umbrella - Protects the boy from falling objects and from heights. Their only relation is that they rhyme.
Tangerine - Trampoline - Jumps to higher places. Like Vanilla and Umbrella, Tangerine and Trampoline rhyme.
Root Beer - Rocket - Allows travel to and from Blobolonia. Root beer, when shaken, can create a large explosion of soda, much like a rocket.
Honey - Hummingbird - Allows Blobert to follow more easily. Hummingbirds eat nectar/honey.
Punch - Hole - Punches a hole to new areas. This is a pun on hole punch.
Lime - Key - Unlock doors. A key lime is a smaller type of lime.
Orange - Vitablaster! - Shoots vitamins at enemies. Oranges are well known for being excellent sources of Vitamin C.
Ketchup - Catch up - Blobert dislikes ketchup-flavored jelly beans, so will not normally eat them; instead, where the ketchup jellybean is thrown, Blobert will "catch up", even from many screens away.

Per Wiki. I tried to write them from memory, but my memory isn't so good anymore.

Edit: the original was beatable, as I proved many years ago as I finished it beginning to end two or three times.

UncleSporky

Oh my god this is amazing! I was just thinking about this.

Ok I have a really cool story regarding A Boy and his Blob and its creator.



A Boy and his Blob was created by David Crane.



His name is on the box and the game intro screen. I used to play it all the time and even my mom got into it, which was unusual. It was really unique and had some cool unique elements, like the smooth animation and musical segues for different blob forms.

David Crane also created Pitfall. I always thought the Boy looked very similar to the Pitfall guy, they animate in the same way. The sprite is made up of different parts, arms and legs that swing separately from the body. This was considered totally revolutionary back in the Atari days.

David Crane also was one of the four founding fathers of Activision, the company that went on to get involved with awesome properties like Guitar Hero.

As of '08,

Wikipedia wrote:

The company is estimated to be worth $18.9 billion, slightly ahead of Electronic Arts who is valued at $14.1 billion.

Well I was looking around online one day and talking about old games, and A Boy and his Blob was mentioned. Suddenly my mom piped up, "David Crane? I used to know a David Crane."


Turns out David Crane grew up with my mom in my old hometown. His mom gave my mom piano lessons. She said he was always considered one of those computer nerds, and she knew he went off west to further his education but didn't know what happened after that.

And we'd been playing A Boy and his Blob all this time, and she never noticed his name on it (or never realized the significance).

Bedlam

How does 2D = Wiiware?

Wario is 2D and Super Paper Mario is 2D (well 3Dish but most of it takes place in 2D)

elkatas

Bedlam wrote: »

How does 2D = Wiiware?

Wario is 2D and Super Paper Mario is 2D (well 3Dish but most of it takes place in 2D)

Well, I checked NP's index, and it is listed as a retail title instead of WW. Will fix this.

Bedlam

Ah, Is this Aprils Nintendo Power?

When does that hit retail shelves?

UncleSporky

elkatas wrote: »

Unfortunately the page with screenshots was run through mosaic filter, so it hard to see details.

Could you post it anyway please?

EDIT: Never mind, I saw it and it's completely useless and illegible.

maximumzero

Dear WayForward,

Please develop a new Shantae game for Wiiware.

Sincerely,

Maximumzero.

UncleSporky

Everybody listen to this OCRemix in anticipation!

One of my favorite old school game tunes ever.

Sheep

Olivaw wrote: »

Holy shit, talk about an obscure remake

I never managed to beat that game, either

That's because it was ridiculously obtuse. Original Metroid levels.

Man.

I hate that I no longer have a Wii.

Steev

I remember being quite interested in the original A Boy and His Blob merely because it was being made by David Crane. I associated him with all the Activision games I played on my 2600, especially Pitfall. I just looked him up on wikipedia and found it amusing that he also worked on Night Trap.

I really liked A Boy and His Blob for its animation, but I found it pretty frustrating to play. Looking back, I guess I wasn't a fan of the trial and error gameplay.

urahonky

I could only play this game with the Game Genie. I still remember the sound effects of putting in the cheat codes each time you hit a letter.

Jam Warrior

Arcibi wrote: »

Am I the only one who hated the NES one with the fury of a thousand burning suns

For me, trying to solve a puzzle in it went something like

1. Feed the damn blob one of every jellybean until you find the one you need
2. Realize the blob isn't standing on exactly the right pixel you need him to be, so spend a decade positioning the boy (who apparently slathered the bottom of his shoes with a mixture of Crisco, KY jelly and WD-40 before heading out on his grand adventure) just right to get the blob to stand where he needs to
3. Die because:
   1. you didn't turn the blob into an umbrella or a bubble or whatever protective thing you're supposed to have that prevents you from being killed instantly upon entering the next screen
   2. you've never been to the next screen and weren't ready for the monster or the pit or whatever kills you almost immediately if you haven't memorized that particular area
   3. you've used up all of the jellybeans you need to solve the next puzzle due to too many iterations of step 1
4. Repeat until game over screen

I remember renting the game once as a little kid and hating it, so I tried it again recently and ugh

If it's being developed by WayForward then maybe it stands a chance, but until proven otherwise A Boy and His Blob will always be complete horrible distilled to its purest essence to me

Fuck yes. I had the gameboy version and got nowhere in it for these exact reasons. An awesome concept with terrible execution.

However I have high hopes for a modern day remake which might not have such a desire to kill us unexpectedly or think it's fun to run out of jelly beans and have to start over from the beginning.

UncleSporky

To be honest it was less like an action game or whatever and more like a King's Quest game where you start out with most of the items. This is considering that many items had one specific use to solve a unique puzzle, and the fact that the game kills you very often with trial-and-error gameplay.

The jack had two uses. The blowtorch was used to burn a single web. The key was used once or twice. The coconut was basically used to look ahead to other screens and had one hack-ish use to avoid annoying cherry bombs. The cola bubble was mainly used to go underwater.

Out of everything the trampoline was basically used the most. That and the bubble or umbrella to slow your fall.

And it was a very small and short game overall, once you knew how not to die. Here is the entire underground map:



The only other area in the game is Blobolonia which is about the same size only horizontal.

Lunker

UncleSporky wrote: »

And it was a very small and short game overall, once you knew how not to die. Here is the entire underground map:



The only other area in the game is Blobolonia which is about the same size only horizontal.

This is kind of depressing to see now. When I was a kid, this game seemed freaking gigantic to me.

UncleSporky

That's because you die a lot! But yeah, in general the environment was big and to-scale with your character, but it was mostly empty spaces and not that many platforms.

Bedlam

I rented the game and never really figured out how to get to the sewers.

I just went to the other planet with some vitamins.

hamburger helper

All I know about Boy & His Blob was from what I read in an old Nintendo Power magazine that had about 10 pages of maps and tips. Most of my NES canon knowledge comes from similar readings... I think I only owned about 20 carts before SNES rolled around.

On Topic: Sounds promising!

Taxman29

You guys are gonna like it. It's pretty sweet and we're all excited about it.

slash000

Woo yeah, this sounds great.

I was extremely impressed by WayForward's Contra 4. Absolutely amazing. They perfectly captured and distilled the spirit of that franchise and injected it all into pretty much the quintessential Contra experience.

Hopefully they can do the same with Boy/Blob

elevature

I'm very excited for this. I hope it's WiiWare because it'll be cheaper, but that probably also means it'll be shorter.

Taxman29

elevature wrote: »

I'm very excited for this. I hope it's WiiWare because it'll be cheaper, but that probably also means it'll be shorter.

It's retail.

maximumzero

Taxman29 wrote: »

elevature wrote: »

I'm very excited for this. I hope it's WiiWare because it'll be cheaper, but that probably also means it'll be shorter.

It's retail.

I assume you're a Wayforward Employee?

Taxman29

maximumzero wrote: »

Taxman29 wrote: »

elevature wrote: »

I'm very excited for this. I hope it's WiiWare because it'll be cheaper, but that probably also means it'll be shorter.

It's retail.

I assume you're a Wayforward Employee?

Yeah, I 'm not on the team making this game but I do get to watch them play it. We're all very excited about this game.

maximumzero

Taxman29 wrote: »

maximumzero wrote: »

Taxman29 wrote: »

elevature wrote: »

I'm very excited for this. I hope it's WiiWare because it'll be cheaper, but that probably also means it'll be shorter.

It's retail.

I assume you're a Wayforward Employee?

Yeah, I 'm not on the team making this game but I do get to watch them play it. We're all very excited about this game.

Does this mean we get to grill you for info (As long as it's not NDA-Breaking)?

urahonky

Bah, don't grill him about it guys. Thanks for letting us know it's retail Taxman.

Taxman29

maximumzero wrote: »

Taxman29 wrote: »

maximumzero wrote: »

Taxman29 wrote: »

elevature wrote: »

I'm very excited for this. I hope it's WiiWare because it'll be cheaper, but that probably also means it'll be shorter.

It's retail.

I assume you're a Wayforward Employee?

Yeah, I 'm not on the team making this game but I do get to watch them play it. We're all very excited about this game.

Does this mean we get to grill you for info (As long as it's not NDA-Breaking)?

What is and is not NDA breaking is pretty fuzzy. Feel free to ask whatever you want but I'm only going to answer what I know won't get me and WF sued.

maximumzero

Taxman29 wrote: »

maximumzero wrote: »

Taxman29 wrote: »

maximumzero wrote: »

Taxman29 wrote: »

elevature wrote: »

I'm very excited for this. I hope it's WiiWare because it'll be cheaper, but that probably also means it'll be shorter.

It's retail.

I assume you're a Wayforward Employee?

Yeah, I 'm not on the team making this game but I do get to watch them play it. We're all very excited about this game.

Does this mean we get to grill you for info (As long as it's not NDA-Breaking)?

What is and is not NDA breaking is pretty fuzzy. Feel free to ask whatever you want but I'm only going to answer what I know won't get me and WF sued.

My biggest question is thus:

Who's idea was this? A Boy and His Blob seems like the most random of properties to resurrect. Next thing you know someone's gonna remake McKids.