De Blob hands-on

I love the idea of De Blob as much as I love how it came about. A student project about beautifying a town has jumped from a humble start on the PC to a full-fledged Wii game. While the gameplay ideas seem simple at first, they open the doors to an addictive experience. I was pleasantly surprised to see the game demoed at THQ’s booth. I just wish I knew more of what was going on in the game to really get a feel for it.

There wasn’t much of an explanation on how to play…just how to control the game. I knew that you were supposed to collect paint colors and start painting the town red, and that’s exactly what I did. I found a little guy that turned my character from white to red, and I started bouncing on everything I could find. Buildings turned red, trees sprung to life, and the road was covered in a paint trail everywhere I went.

I knew there was a rhythmic element to the gameplay, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure it out. This isn’t the game’s fault at all, it was simply due to the demo situation. Your character has an arrow trail behind him that shows you when you should flip the Wiimote to go for another jump, but other than that you are on your own. If you hit a building to paint it and jumped off at the right time, your blob would fly off with a lot of momentum. This is obviously how you would start building chains, but I couldn’t manage to get the timing down. I am sure there are some other indicators that helped out, but getting a full grasp on the game in the middle of the show floor was a hard task.

From a visual standpoint, De Blob comes off as a very striking, artistic approach. It’s your job to paint the canvas, your duty to make the game stand out. I really liked what I saw, and that’s saying a lot when you’re looking at a town devoid of color. The art style has a very cartoony/art deco flair that I found appealing. It made it that much more fun to fill the land with color. While not on the same level as Katamari, the graphics definitely gave off that vibe.

Actually, the entire game gave off that vibe. De Blob really doesn’t play anything like Katamari, but it does give you that same zen feeling. You just move along, painting buildings as you pass them, climbing to the top and diving off. It’s just a very free game, allowing you to make the decisions on how you want to approach things. Other areas of the town are locked until you do a lot of painting, but you never feel restrained by the blockages.

De Blob is definitely one to keep an eye on. It should provide a very unique experience, which is always welcome on a unique system like the Wii.