Blobbo

Overview

One of the first games added to the website, a puzzle game that for years the full version was not available, as it had been discontinued by the author back in 1996.

Review

One of the original ideas behind the Games List was to add lesser-known titles related to my Classic Mac gaming heritage (early additions to the list included Bachman and Spectre) and Blobbo fits the bill. Well, technically "Blobbo Lite" since, until I actually started writing the review, there was not a known download of Blobbo anywhere. I finally found it through Googling and following up with an email (to Sweden, no less!), and uploaded it, though I couldn't get the level editor to work at press time. Response was underwhelming, you'd think finding the full version of a beloved Mac shareware title after nearly two decades would get applause, but few cared.

OK, so the way Blobbo works is a puzzle game. There's 25 levels, which at least one version I saw had 25 level files ready to go. The full version has solutions to everything, but requires you to quit out, so take notes.

The animations are sparse but clever, especially later levels, as there's Sparky (a little frowning ball of electricity that will eventually zap you after your sunglasses disappear) and spiders (poisonous ones, a bite will turn Blobbo green with Xs for eyes). I'll try to find those 25 levels, but in the meantime, please do download it and play it, because that full version was missing for 20 years. It's not exactly a missing Doctor Who episode, but still worth looking at, and of course, there is in fact an ending to the game after you beat Level 25, and you discover what the point of all of it was. It's cute, but not worth the hair-pulling puzzles.

Player Notes

The above review was written back in May 4, 2015 and only received a partial rewrite during a website update.

Port & Rerelease Notes

The Blobbo FAQ (linked above) discusses that Blobbo was discontinued in 1996 as it was sold to a "Japanese corporation who will, among other things, be porting it to Super Nintendo and Windows". This corporation did not end up porting Blobbo after all. It's a strange case, the corporation wasn't mentioned and it would almost seem like a hoax if Andreas had literally stopped selling the full version of Blobbo. Well, in any case, at least we found the full version and no one has come after it. Who could it possibly have been, though? Most of the old Japanese video game corporations are either still around or were merged into the ones that still exist. The one exception is perhaps Data East, but even then, Data East sold its IPs to a company called G-Mode (later purchased by Marvelous Inc.) and nobody seems to have laid claim to it.

Additional Content

Yes! We do in fact have a Level List with a brief description of each one.

Screenshots

First level. Right click to see actual size.