A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia

1989 · Platform / Puzzle · NES

Overview

A Boy and His Blob (1989) is David Crane's NES puzzle-platformer, in which a boy who cannot jump feeds jelly beans to his blob friend Blobert to turn him into tools.

Deep Dive

The boy can only walk left and right, so progress depends on Blobert, who changes shape with each of 14 jelly bean flavours: licorice makes a ladder, apple a jack and punch a hole. A whistle turns him back. The pair travel through caves and subways under Earth on the way to Blobolonia, whose emperor lets his people eat nothing but sweets.

Developer Story

Crane was chief programmer and designer, with Garry Kitchen co-designing, at Absolute Entertainment's in-house studio Imagineering. Reviews were mixed. A 2009 Wii reimagining by WayForward was made without Crane.

Did You Know?

It won Best of Show at CES 1989 and a 1990 Parents' Choice Award.
Imagineering finished it in about six weeks, when NES games usually took six to eight months.