Teh Blobz

Perhaps at one point you were like me. You downloaded this game, poked around for a few minutes, got bored and left. Well I'm happy to report that things have improved a lot since the first time I tried this game. The beginning has improved, and the gameplay becomes even more interesting once you've moved past the starting complex.

The original hub page for Teh Blobz was created back in the beginning of '05. That means it was started more than four years ago, so its no big surprise that the majority of the game isn't taking advantage of BYOND's latest features, because those features weren't available back then! There are new updates rolling around the bend periodically though, and hopefully we'll see some improvement soon.

It should be mentioned that although this game is undeniably in a playable state, it is NOT a finished game. Based on the hub page only about a third of the game is complete so far. And as with any incomplete game, there are some bugs - sometimes things don't work right, and sometimes things don't appear where they should. I had a few occasions where the game crashed, but they were rare and if you save frequently you shouldn't have a problem.


Fun Factor

Lets just get this out of the way: the majority of the game consists of wandering around and clicking on enemies repeatedly in order to bash them out of existence. If you're not willing to put up with the tediousness of that in order to appreciate the finer points of this game, then you won't enjoy it.

From the very beginning, you're told what to do next. Talk to this person, go here, or do this. This is a good thing, since it gets you familiar with the world one section at a time, and you always have an idea of what you're supposed to be doing. Throughout the entire game, I never once found myself wandering aimless and unsure of what to do next. Part of that is because there's a whole section of your display dedicated to what to do next - your Missions Log! Don't know what to do next? Check the log and it'll tell you. Great feature.

Although you'll always have plenty of direction, the real fun of the game doesn't start until after you've finished the first chapter and you can go explore the outside world. In the beginning, things feel rather restrictive - you can't travel very far, you can't make any money, and you don't have very much to work with. It makes some of the enemy encounters frustrating when you don't feel that you have the means at your disposal to influence the outcome and its all up to the random numbers. As things progress, you acquire more tools and you can start using less brawn and more strategy on those dangerous conflicts, and that makes the game more enjoyable to play.

The world in this game, even though its only partially finished, is fairly huge. Aside from the surface map, there are also swamps and caves that never freakin' end! While this is awesome for the explorers out there, it also tends to create a sense of "are we there yet?" But you've got to give the guy credit, creating worlds this big takes a lot of dedication. Fortunately there are enough neat things to find - and a good number of areas that can only be accessed if you return again with additional tools - that the discovery aspects outweigh the long, boring aspects. And you will eventually acquire tools to help to make travel faster.


Control and Gameplay

There are three essential ways that you can interact with the game. You can use the arrow keys to move your character around, and you can double click on things to interact with (or attack) them directly. You can also use the center key on your number pad (hope you have one!) to use magical stuff. I'm thinking these controls must have been designed for a left handed person, because using the mouse with my right hand and controlling the arrow keys with my left, makes the center key difficult to reach, thus creating an awkward set of controls - at least in my case. One must also realize that, on a lot of laptops, there is no center key, meaning that this game becomes unplayable without a number pad.

The interface is a bit unwieldy but functional. Your inventory is listed in one long column, and since the amount of stuff you can have in your inventory is unlimited, and items don't merge into single instances with multiple uses, you end up with a LOT of items to browse through. To make matters worse, when dealing with equipment which is already hard to find given the massive number of items you'll be sifting through, you must first locate the item you already have equipped, unequip it, then locate the item you want to equip. It seems an unnecessary hassle given that they could have made equipping something automatically unequip whatever was previous equipped in that slot. That would also have made it easier to figure out where each piece of equipment is supposed to be equipped, since there's nothing that tells you and, your character being a large ball of glop, common sense doesn't always apply here.

The core gameplay boils down to clicking on enemies in order to bash them with whatever you may be wielding. You'll do this repeatedly throughout your adventure, and it does start to get old. It would be nice if there was at least a targeting system where you could click on something and let the computer repeat the bashing for you as long as the victim is within range. Then I wouldn't need to wear out my poor ol' mouse.



Graphics

In spite of the recent visual overhaul, this game still isn't what you'd consider eye candy. The graphics are NES quality at best. There are however some nice touches, such as the expressions that you'll see on your blob's face - anger when he's bashing bad guys, and a big smile when you've just accomplished something that makes you think "woohoo!".


Sound

There are no sound effects to speak of, but there is background music. They sound like the usual catchy "where have I heard this before?" tunes, but at least they match the themes well. There are some issues with the music not starting up at some points, such as when you're saved at certain locations and you restart your game - no music.


Replayability

As I mentioned before, there are tons of places to explore in this game world, and a reasonable number of treasures to find. That leaves it open for you to discover new things if you play through a second time. However, given how tedious it was to travel through a lot of these places the first time through, I'm thinking that having to traverse areas that you most likely already explored might hamper how fun it is to go through it again.

The missions are totally linear, but there are optional side missions that you can complete at your leisure, and if you don't finish them all on your first play through you can always go back and try to finish them on a replay. The plus side is that you'll recognize a whole slew of access points (which you'll acquire ways to access later on) that you didn't realize were there the first time because you didn't know they were access points!

Would the game be worth a second play through? That's up to you. How much did you figure out on your first trip through? If you think you missed some stuff then, yeah, it might be worth a replay.


Conclusion

My biggest complaints with this game were:

• The awkward controls (although they may work fine as long as you're using a left handed mouse and not a laptop).
• Some of the caverns are immensely long and empty. I mean, its cool that it gives you the sensation of traveling incredibly far underground, but its disappointing when there's nothing exciting at the end.
• The awkward combat - sometimes the enemies are so small and bouncy that, no matter how hard you try, you just can't click on them! And when you can click on them, you have to click, and click, and click...

There are, however, definitely some good aspects to this game. For one, there is a lot of content. I'm certain that I spent at least 12 hours playing through the completed section of this game, and that is by far the most time I've ever spent on a BYOND-built single player RPG.

Should you play this game? If you can stand the awkward controls and the often monotonous combat, then it certainly is worth at least a single play through!