de Blob (known as Blob: Colorful na Kibou in Japan) is a platform-puzzle video game. It was developed by Blue Tongue and published by THQ and originally released on the Nintendo Wii. The game that allows players to explore and liberate an alien city from the evil, monochromatic INKT Corporation that has taken over the city and outlawed all colour and fun from daily life. Playing as Blob, gamers will embark on a quest to re-animate the fictional place of Chroma City, and bring character back to the oppressed, by splattering buildings, landmarks, and citizens with colour. The game was originally scheduled for a February 2008 release, but it was delayed and then released in September 2008 for the Wii.
Plot
Told through a combination of pre-rendered cinematic sequences and in-game dialog, de Blob tells the story of Chroma City, its invasion by the INKT Corporation and its subsequent liberation by the titular Blob and the Colour Underground.
Initially a lively and colourful city populated by its equally colourful and diverse citizens, the Raydians, Chroma City is suddenly invaded by the INKT Corporation. A corporate military dictatorship, INKT is led by the villainous Comrade Black and dedicated to the eradication of colour through its "War on Colour". Chroma City quickly falls to the invading army of Inkies and colour-draining Leechbots, leaving its landscape barren, its flora withered and its fauna in hiding. The citizens are rounded up and turned into Graydians, encased in homogeneous grey prison suits distinguished only by a bar code on the back of each shell. The Graydians are forced to serve as both menial labour and as a living resource of ink, mined literally from their sadness.
Hero Blob witnesses the takeover of Chroma City from his jungle retreat and goes into action, first rescuing the only remaining pocket of resistance, the "Colour Underground". Blob joins the group, and under their orders, begins to win back sections of the city and arouse the vicious ire of Comrade Black. Comrade Black orders everything from propaganda campaigns to the creation of super soldiers in an attempt to stop Blob, to no avail.
With nearly all of Chroma City in control of the Colour Underground, Comrade Black desperately orders all his troops to retreat to his spaceship in Lake Raydia, and attempts to launch all the stolen colour into a black hole where it will be lost forever. Blob manages to stowaway onto the spaceship and defeat Comrade Black, then detonates a device that devours the spacecraft in a burst of color and whimsy. With the Raydians finally safe, Blob returns to the jungle, napping on a tree as he was at the story's beginning. A post-credits scene reveals that Comrade Black survived the destruction of his spaceship, and is now trapped on a tiny island populated by cute, colourful creatures, much to his hatred.
Gameplay
The player—Blob—starts each level as a ball of clear "water". Blob is free to roll around and collect paint from Paintbots in the three colours of red, yellow and blue, which can be combined into orange, green, purple and brown. Blob then merely has to touch a building, lamppost, billboard, or other object for the entire surface of said object to be smeared in his current colour. As he colours the city, the game's soundtrack, featuring live bands which recorded slow and fast versions of each "lick" (each hit), gradually adds more instrumentation as well as an additional "layer" of sound corresponding to Blob's current colour—being red usually adds a saxophone solo to the music. As Blob collects paint, his size increases to a maximum of 100; each object he paints costs a paint point, as does attacking enemies. Blob can get rid of his current colour by touching water.
While Blob is free to paint, there are various missions which can or must be completed. These missions are given by various members of the Colour Underground and include painting certain buildings certain colours and transforming a landmark with enough of a certain colour of paint (for example, 30 yellow paint points). Each of the 10 huge levels have a main landmark to paint, which may require more than one colour and more paint points than usual.
There are various hazards to avoid, however. Pools of ink turn Blob black and cause him to lose paint points constantly; when he reaches 0, he loses a life. Ink must be washed out with water. The INKT forces, Inkies, will send out foot soldiers to stop Blob, as well as other forces—handheld ink guns, turrets, tanks, jet bikes, and even Inkies that are immune to all but one colour. There are other hazards such as hot plates, spikes, and electric plates.
As Blob paints the city and completes missions, points are accumulated. Each gate separating the player from the next part of a stage can be opened by reaching a certain number of points. Once the final gate is open, the stage can be completed.
Trivia
- At one point a Nintendo DS version of de Blob was being made by now-shuttered developer Helixe, whose former employees have since formed DoubleTap Games.
- The IOS version of De Blob is a top down painting game where you tilt De Blob around the place to Color Buildings, Avoid Inkies, and Free Raydians.
Games in the de Blob series | |
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Confirmed Games | • De Blob: Utrecht • De Blob • De Blob: Swatch Challenge • De Blob: Revolution • De Blob 2 (Nintendo DS) • De Blob 2 |
Cancelled Games | • De Blob Online |