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I am Blobert, eater of worlds.

Released by Absolute Entertainment in 1989 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia is a puzzle platformer developed by David Crane of Pitfall! fame. It features the adventures of the eponymous hero (the Boy) and his friend Blob (full name Blobert).

Blob has the uncanny ability to change into different shapes/objects depending on what type of jellybean the boy feeds him. From licorice to ketchup, each flavor turns Blob into a different shape, allowing the boy to overcome obstacles and complete each level as they race to Blob's home world to defeat the evil emperor.

Numerous remakes were rumored since its release, but for twenty years the series consisted of only the original and a 1990 sequel for the Game Boy, The Rescue of Princess Blobette.

It was resurrected on the Wii in 2009 by WayForward Technologies as a level-based puzzle platformer. A high-definition port of this game was later released for Windows (via Steam and GOG.com), PlayStation 4, Play Station Vita, and Xbox One on January 19, 2016 and Nintendo Switch in fall 2021.


Both games provide examples of:

  • Adipose Rex: The Emperor of Bloblonia is a giant, obese blob who never gets up with his throne, relying on his minions to kill you instead.
  • Alliterative Name: Those jellybean names that aren't pun-tastic tend to be these. Both games have the Licorice Ladder and Tangerine Trampoline.
    • The original and Wii versions give us the Root Beer Rocket.
    • The Wii version also gives us: The Berry Balloon, Bubble Gum Bouncer, Pear Parachute, Cream Cannon, and Strawberry Shield (replacing Strawberry = Bridge in the original).
  • Batman Can Breathe in Space: In the inevitable trip to Blobolonia in both games, the boy is able to survive a long spaceflight without any breathining equipment.
  • Blob Monster: Most of the characters are squishy blobs with eyes. But the Blob isn't so much a monster in this game. Some of the sequel's enemies fit into a Blob Monster category as well, being black and yellow blobs that kill the Boy on contact.
  • Boss-Arena Idiocy: The Emperor is allergic to vitamins so needless to say he keeps a jar of them in his room that can be knocked onto him.
  • A Boy and His X: Just look at the title. After the Boy meets the Blob, they become very good friends thanks to the Blob's love of jellybeans and the help he provides to the Boy navigating the world. There is a dedicated "hug" button, demonstrating their close relationship. When the Blob has a Disney Death the boy is very upset. True to form, the relationship ends with the Blob having to return home alone after all their adventures.
  • Collision Damage: As well as harming the player it applies to some of the enemies too if they collide with different enemies.
  • Eternal Engine: In NES version, the sweets factory. In Wii version, the earlier levels of world 4 are a giant factory with a number of gears in the background and a number of strange machines as environmental hazards.
  • Fat Bastard: The Emperor of Bloblonia. In the original game, this was part of the alleged Aesop, because the game had a whole "candy is bad for you" theme and the Emperor was just a sapient blob of fat. In the Wii version, there's no such moral anymore, so he's just your standard big fat jerk.
  • Food-Based Superpowers: The titular Blob gains shapeshifting powers from eating ordinary jelly beans, and the flavor of bean determines what the Blob will turn into. Most of the transformations are based on wordplay, using Alliteration (Root Beer Rocket), rhyme (Tangerine Trampoline), or even puns (Apple Jack).
  • Inexplicable Treasure Chests: The collectible secrets of the game are a number of treasure chests that can be used to unlock bonus levels. Who leaves those things scattered around the forest, city and Bloblonia anyway?
  • Kid Hero: The titular Boy helps the Blob return home and defeat the Emperor and his minions without standing to gain from it in any way.
  • No Name Given: The Boy is known only as "the Boy".
  • Not the Fall That Kills You…: Fall more than two screens without landing on something soft or bouncy, and you'll die. Be very careful about where you Trampoline to....
  • One-Hit-Point Wonder: There is no health bar. Anything that can hurt the boy, can kill him instantly.
  • Parental Abandonment: In the Wii game, the Boy is specifically said to be around 6 years old. Where on Earth are his parents? The original looks like a teenager, so he's probably OK on his own, but still..
  • Portable Hole: When fed a fruit punch flavored jelly bean, the blob turns into the Punch Hole, letting the Boy drop down through the floor.
  • Requisite Royal Regalia: All kings and emperors in the series seem to wear crowns.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: The Blob is basically a squishy white pillow with eyes. He's very huggable. Admit it: You want a Blob of your very own, don't you?
  • Rocket Ride: The Root Beer jellybean turns the Blob into a rocket that the Boy can use to navigate tunnels, as well as go to space in cutscenes.
  • Shaped Like Itself: As the game interface puts it, "Coconut = Coconut". Feed the Blob a Coconut Jellybean = Turn Blob into a coconut.
  • Spikes of Doom: Every world has a number of spikes that will kill the Boy on contact. The Trampoline is the only way to safely stand on them. In the original game, stalactites and stalagmites also act as spikes.
  • Stalactite Spite: The ceiling in World 2 has a number of these, that, as usual, will kill the Boy on contact. It's one of the few things that can kill the Boy when he's in the Cola Bubble.
  • Pun: The jellybean's abilities are linked to their flavors, and in a number of cases, the connection is a bad pun. Both versions have Punch = Hole, Apple = Jack, and the original has Lime = Key.
  • Super Drowning Skills: The Boy and the enemies will die just from touching water. Only the Bubblegum Bouncer will let him cross water. Of course, as mentioned above, he can still breathe in space.
  • Super Not-Drowning Skills: While the boy can't swim, the Blob is unable to sink if he's not a bubble or an anvil.

The 1989 game and Game Boy sequel provide examples of:

  • Action Bomb: Cherry bombs explode when they touch the ground, and are fatal even if they detonate off-screen.
  • American Kirby Is Hardcore: When the NES game was released in Japan, the Boy and the title screen were changed to look "cuter".
  • Awesome, but Impractical: The Vitablaster. It's a gun (made by feeding Blob an Orange jellybean) that can be used to kill enemies on Blobonia by shooting them with vitamins. However, doing so puts you at risk of dying and it's far more efficient to just roll the coconut a huge distance into the screen to make them go away.
  • Captain Ersatz: The Emperor is essentially a grey Jabba the Hutt, plus a crown and minus his tail.
  • Chekhov's Boomerang: The Apple Jack is only used to open the manhole cover and defeat the final boss.
  • Edge Gravity: Not in this game. If you run off of a ledge the Boy runs in the air for a second Looney Tunes-style and then plummets.
  • The Ghost: The Evil Alchemist responsible for capturing the princess in the Gameboy title, who never shows up in the game itself.
  • Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: Sometimes, when screeching to a halt at the edge, the Boy will suddenly stand in midair. In true cartoon physics fashion, he will gradually look down, realize his situation, and fall, usually to his death.
  • Leap of Faith: Or more accurately, fall of faith. In the subway, placing the hole at the wrong position may cause you to fall multiple screens.
  • Not Completely Useless: Ketchup-flavored jellybeans have no effect (the Blob hates them), but throwing one when the Blob isn't on the screen causes him to teleport to where it landed. A bit of a Guide Dang It!, since even if you connect the dots on the "ketchup = catch up" wordplay, it's still the only jellybean that you don't feed to Blobert.
  • Parasol Parachute: Vanilla jellybean turns blob into parasol/umbrella. This allows the boy to fall down much slower.
  • Save the Princess: In the Rescue of Princess Blobette, the said princess needs to be saved.
  • Script Breaking: Normally, getting past a screen on Blobolonia clears it, allowing you to pass without further interference. Throwing the bean off the left of the left-hand screen will trick the game to think that all such screens are cleared.
  • Treasure Is Bigger in Fiction: Large blue gems are larger than the boy himself.
  • Trial-and-Error Gameplay: Due to Flip-Screen Scrolling, it is not often possible to see what's above or below. Coupled with instant death hazards that cannot be foreseen, it can lead to unforeseen deaths.
  • Under the Sea: The caves in your world have water in them, and you won't be able to survive unless you feed Blobert a jellybean that turns him into a bubble.
  • Unwinnable by Design: The game contains a limited number of beans, and using them recklessly can result in running out of something you need, leaving you up a creek without a paddle. Perhaps most notably, there are only two lime beans — you only need one to reach the emperor, but playing as intended you'll expend the other one on learning that it makes the Blob into a key, leaving zero room for making the mistake of trying to unlock anything else.
  • A Winner Is You: The NES release gives a single screen message about what happens after a boss is defeated.

The 2009 game provides examples of:

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  • 100% Completion: Getting all 3 treasure chests in a level unlocks a challenge level. Beating challenge levels unlock things like concept art and some other stuff.
  • All Animals Are Dogs: The developers said that the personality of the Blob is largely based on dogs.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: Calling Blob three times will cause the Boy to whistle instead, which makes the Blob instantly turn into a balloon so it can reach you.
  • Anvil on Head: The Banana Anvil is very effective when it comes to enemies.
  • Artificial Stupidity: At least the game is kind enough to note it — When Blob cannot reach the player or seems to be getting stuck, he turns pink (as he turns gray near the enemies).
  • Award-Bait Song: Everything to Me is a very melancholy song about the Blob having to leave the boy and it's lyrics are general enough for it to apply to any sad situation.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The evil emperor is defeated, but Blob has to return to his planet. The credits play a song called "Everything to Me" about how the blob is the greatest thing ever to happen to the boy, accompanied by a montage of pictures of them playing together with nobody else in sight, culminating in an end screen of him staring up at the moon.
  • Blackout Basement:
    • Level 2-6. Blob helpfully eats a firefly to help you light the way, but if you don't have Blob cling close to you, you'll have no idea where you're going.
    • The "grand prize" for completing the T-rex set of Challenge Levels in World 2 is an orb that you can use to turn the lights off and play any level in this manner if you want.
  • Bottomless Pits: A quick way to test them is to throw a jellybean down and watch the Blob take the plunge for you; if it's bottomless, he'll transform into balloon form and float right back.
  • Bubblegloop Swamp: Second half of the first world takes place in a swamp.
  • But Now I Must Go: The blob returns to his home planet at the end, leaving the boy alone after an emotional farewell.
  • Came from the Sky: How the Blob got to earth.
  • The Cameo: There's a Shantae doll on the bookshelf in the World 2 Hub.
  • Challenge Run: There's an orb that turns off the lights.
  • Combat Tentacles: The second boss, the Beast, has an entire back full of writhing, deadly tentacles.
  • Concept Art Gallery: At all the hubs after completing challenge stages. There are a few videos mixed in too.
  • Continuity Nod: The Boy is significantly younger than the original Boy... but he wears the same clothes, right down to the colors.
  • Cool Chair: The main villain sits on one with heads and all.
  • Cranium Ride: You can ride on certain enemies if you drop an anvil on their heads, which allows you to safely ride them.
  • Credits Medley: After "Everything To Me" song, a medley of previous songs found in levels starts to play.
  • Creepy Twins: One of the enemy types is a pair of twin blobs. Drop an anvil on one of them, and the other one will counter by transforming into a Giant blob.
  • Cutscene Power to the Max: The opening movie depicts the blob eating a bean and transforming. All in midair. (The blob actually can catch jellybeans mid-air, but he usually waits for them to land before trying to chase them down.)
  • Cutting the Knot: A bit of outside-the-box thinking and strategic bean usage can allow the player to completely bypass certain puzzles. For example, one room in World 2 has a giant blob monster blocking the way forward, and the game guides the player towards pushing a rock off of a high ledge, pushing it onto a ramp that can be lifted up with the jack, then dropping it down to break a hole in the floor that allows the player to get underneath the giant blob monster and use the jack to lift it up and crush it against the ceiling. Or the player can just notice that the ledge the rock spawns on extends right over the giant blob, create a hole and push the rock through it to crush the enemy that way.
  • Dark Is Evil: All enemy blobs are black (though the blob emperor himself is grey).
  • Directionally Solid Platforms: You need a hole to get back down from these.
  • Disney Death: In the second-to-last level, right before the 11th-Hour Superpower kicks in, one of the Emperor's blob-tentacles appears to squeeze the Blob to little bits. However, a few Swiss-Army Tears—and the fact that he's a blob—help the Blob get back together in no time.
  • Ditto Fighter: A certain jellybean will make Blob turn into Boy's shape and replicates his movements. One of the enemies can also do so.
  • Eleventh Hour Super Power: Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha! during the penultimate level.
  • Energy Ball: Final boss can fire these.
  • Evil Laugh: When you meet the evil emperor, he laughs at the player.
  • Evil Overlooker: On its box art.
  • Family-Unfriendly Death:
    • The emperor gets punched repeatedly in the skull by a giant robot, while bleeding black goo, and then, when he finally dies, he turns into a roiling mass of blackness as his face TEARS INTO TINY PIECES and he dissolves.
    • Killing the frog mooks by having the blob change from his coconut form to his basic form while inside it.
    • What happens to the boy if you fail. Picture this scene: A 6-year old boy with no special powers falls 80 feet into a bed of spikes, slumps over, and stops moving. He's obviously dead. Fade to black, reload the checkpoint.
  • Foreshadowing: The world 2 boss can be seen wandering around the background as you traverse his level.
  • Four-Fingered Hands: A rigorously enforced part of the Boy's design, to help make him as cuddly as possible.
  • Genre Throwback: Art style and the trailer of the game in inspired by 80-s cartoons and films.
  • Ghibli Hills: The Boy makes his ho— er, tree fort in some truly beautiful forest land. It's right next to Bubblegloop Swamp, though. (But it's still beautiful.)
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: The enemies have them.
  • Gusty Glade: Some levels have winds blowing from blow. Challenge 2-5 being centered around this mechanic.
  • Guide Dang It!: In most cases, inverted. The hint signs are everywhere. They're left there as a remnants of the development and playtesting stage of the game development.
  • Heli-Critter: One of the pieces of native wildlife in Blobolonia.
  • Helpful Mook: Although they can still kill you, you can drop Anvil Blob on large enemy Blobs (and the small cannonball ones) to go on a Cranium Ride of sorts. The large ones will also happily toss your Cola Bubble around to help cover large distances. Enemy blobs can also weigh down pressure plates (especially the Enemy Clone blobs) and set off the exploding blobs that hover in midair.
  • Hub Level: One for each of the 4 main worlds.
  • Human Cannonball: When your blob has a cannon form, that's what the boy can do while being able to stay invulnerable to some of the threats.
  • Infinite Supplies: Boy carries an infinite amount of jellybeans, to prevent the player from getting stuck in the middle of a level.
  • Interface Spoiler: Directly inverted. All of the levels are 10 stages long, right? World 1 had 10, World 2 had 10, World 3 had 10, World 4 has... wait, why are you facing the Final Boss? It's only the end of Level 4-8! Why are we back in World 1?Wait, did someone tape ''two more levels'' to the end of the map? Oh, Crap!...
    • The achievements in the rerelease in particular spoil the fact that World 4 has only 8 levels, while World 1 has 12.
  • Just Eat Him: If you get too close to the giant fat blobs they will swallow you. Also the frog enemies will eat Coconut Blob... only for him to emerge from their insides when you call him.
  • Level Ate: Bloblonia comes pretty close. Some parts of it do look organic, but there's a lot of towering gelatin-mold spires and jellybeans everywhere.
  • Loads and Loads of Loading: Loading happens every time a door is entered. In levels with lots of doors, there is lots of loading.
  • Logo Joke
  • Long Song, Short Scene: Done intentionally! There are four very hidden songs found only in the Sound Test (It Makes Sense in Context). Musically, they don't fit the style of the rest of the game. However, they'll sound... familiar to those who've played the original game...
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: One of the Blob's powers in World 4 is a shield that can block enemy blobs.
  • Mood Whiplash:
    • The absolutely beautiful opening levels are as lovely and as soothing as can be, full of fireflies and gently swaying trees... until you hit Level 1-10. "This music sounds... different. Everything's so red! I've got a bad feeling about this... HOLY CRAP OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING!?"
    • The poor Blob getting a Disney Death, followed immediately by the 11th-Hour Superpower kicking in.
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: Blob seems to just gain new powers and jellybeans without reason from level to level.
  • No-Gear Level:
    • Level 4-1 requires you to traverse the entire level without Blob at your side. Blob? BLOB!?
    • Beginning of the penultimate level has this thing happen too.
  • Nostalgia Level: Level 11.
  • Notice This: "Follow the fireflies" is a good maxim to follow if you want to find all the treasures.
  • One-Hit Kill: All bosses take three hits to defeat, except the boss at the end of the fourth and apparently final world.
  • One-Winged Angel The Emperor's final form even has copious mouth-tentacles to put you in mind of Cthulhu. And Zoidberg.
  • Playing Tennis with the Boss
  • Pressure Plate: Quite a lot pressure plates exist as a puzzle element, especially in the last world, as well as several of the challenge stages. They're weighed down by the player, rocks, several blob abilities, and enemies.
  • Pulling Themselves Together: With the help of Swiss-Army Tears.
  • Puzzle Boss: All of the bosses. Makes sense, since it's pretty much a puzzle game.
  • Red Sky, Take Warning: Before and during the first boss battle and during the final boss battle.
  • Respawning Enemies: But only those critical for completing a nearby puzzle.
  • Ring Inventory: The menu for selecting the jelly beans.
  • Scenery Porn: Some absolutely gorgeous hand-drawn artwork makes up the backgrounds.
  • Scenery Gorn: The second half of World 3, which features a decayed, dying version of the Dr. Seuss-like scenery in the first half of World 3.
  • Shapeshifter Baggage: Officially, the Blob maintains the same volume in all transformations; larger forms (like the Cannon and Bubble transformations) are merely light and hollow. However, only the Anvil and Clone transformations are heavy enough to weigh down pressure plates.
  • Signpost Tutorial: Many levels have multiple signs that depict a blob transformation the player should use in order to proceed.
  • Silence Is Golden: The game has no dialogue... at all. (Well, the Boy yells "Blob!" and "Let's go!") And barely any on-screen text. Even the "hint signs" just show pictures! It works, though.
  • Sound Test: One of the unlockable bonuses in the World 3 Hub level: A level with a variety of friendly Blobs, who play music when you feed them jellybeans.
  • Spoiler Opening: The opening movie displays many of Blob's powers, as well as three of the four major bosses.
  • Stalactite Spite: Eventually, stalactite hazards make an appearance that fall whenever the Boy or the Blob is underneath them.
  • Stealth Pun: Added to the pun-filled jellybean flavors are Mint Double (or Doublemint) and Strawberry Shield (which could be argued is a stealth reference to "Strawberry Fields Forever.")
  • Stock Money Bag: A lot of money in the NES version is stored in bags.
  • Sugar Bowl: The game specifically set out to evoke a heartwarming, Disney/Studio Ghibli-esque feel.
  • Sugar Apocalypse: When you reach the second half of world 3, you realize that a wide radius around the blob emperor's castle has become a decayed wasteland version of the vibrant environments you had just been through in the first half.
  • Swiss-Army Tears: After Blob's death at the hands (literally) of the Emperor in Level 1-11, the Boy cries on the pieces of his body to bring him back to life.
  • Temporary Platform:
    • Small floating platforms will shake and fall when you step on them, but they respawn, too.
    • The final challenge level (1-12) has one room where a basic enemy Blob moves back and forth across a Pressure Plate, toggling between two sets of platforms that are form your only way of crossing a bed of spikes (and a hill).
  • Theme Music Power-Up: Once the 11th-Hour Superpower finally makes its appearance, the City March starts to play.
  • There Was a Door: Your first appearance in the World 3 hub involves crashing through the roof. Averted when going from World 4 back to World 1, since the boy and the blob just fly in through the open window instead.
  • Treehouse of Fun: The World 1 Hub is a treehouse where the Boy apparently lives alone. It has a lot of room to explore and many secrets there.
  • Triumphant Reprise: After the blob is brought back to life and turned into a mech.
  • True Final Boss: It actually manages to be a surprise for once, due to a variant on Interface Spoiler.
  • A Twinkle in the Sky: During the ending, the blob turns into a rocket and disappears into distance with a twinkle.
  • Unexpected Genre Change:
    • Level 14/2-4. It's the first level you can use the Cola Bubble jellybean in... and it plays more like something out of Sonic the Hedgehog than the other levels.
    • The World 2's Challenge level #10, which involves flying the Root Beer Rocket through a massive labyrinth full of Deadly Walls.
  • Video Game Caring Potential:
    • There's a "Hug" button; yes, you read that right.
    • The fourth world also has a number of caged blobs in the Emperor's citadel. Feeding them a Berry Balloon bean will free them, but you get nothing for doing so beyond warm fuzzy feelings (and achievements for each level cleared out in the rerelease.)
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: The game has a "Scold" button. Not that it does much beyond making the Blob stay in place until you call him.
  • Wackyland: Third part of the game is set on Blobonia, an alien planet with strangely-shaped, colorful flora in the background, accompanied by goofy music. Unfortunately, in the second half of the world a Sugar Apocalypse kicks in.
  • Weird Moon: The full Moon takes up a large part of the background, if visible.
  • Where It All Began: The game's final two levels are not in World 4. No, they're all the way back in World 1.
  • World Shapes: Bloblonia is very... bean-shaped.
  • Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: When the Final Boss comes at the end of level 8 of what's normally a 10-level world and all it takes to defeat him is a One-Hit Kill before he slinks away, you know something more has to happen...

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