Like pretty much any video game, the one we signed on for was not the game we wound up with. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. In fact, just the opposite - Blobby's awesome, and a great way to kill ten minutes. There are some parts of the level design for Blobby I'm really proud of, too. In the second level if you know how to play your cards right you can boost through it in five seconds. You need to be pretty skilled to pull it off though. But great as it is, it's still nothing like the game we originally wanted.
The original plan was to make a pretty straightforward 2D side scrolling platformer about a blob who would collect stuff and grow. Eventually it'd get large enough that it could swallow enemies whole, and the larger it got the more it could jump but the less mobile it was. There were also plans about having it rampage through London, or be able to split into two smaller blobs for co-op, and so on and so forth. Naturally, none of that happened. The gradual evolution of Blobby from basic platformer cutout 101 to a speed based game is a long and intricate one, and really not worth reciting down here.
Regardless of it's ultimate shape, I loved Blobby. It was fun - not just the kind of 'oh, this is cool' kind of fun most games were at in our class, but actually fun. Those seconds you'd be panicking because the laser guillotine was catching up to you, and seeing the goal just in time. I remember all the moans of disappointment as our play testers would be caught just a second too soon or the they way some of them would jump around in their seat as they get that really big boost just in time. Those were magic.
The original plan was to make a pretty straightforward 2D side scrolling platformer about a blob who would collect stuff and grow. Eventually it'd get large enough that it could swallow enemies whole, and the larger it got the more it could jump but the less mobile it was. There were also plans about having it rampage through London, or be able to split into two smaller blobs for co-op, and so on and so forth. Naturally, none of that happened. The gradual evolution of Blobby from basic platformer cutout 101 to a speed based game is a long and intricate one, and really not worth reciting down here.
Regardless of it's ultimate shape, I loved Blobby. It was fun - not just the kind of 'oh, this is cool' kind of fun most games were at in our class, but actually fun. Those seconds you'd be panicking because the laser guillotine was catching up to you, and seeing the goal just in time. I remember all the moans of disappointment as our play testers would be caught just a second too soon or the they way some of them would jump around in their seat as they get that really big boost just in time. Those were magic.