One of the games I was most pleased to see under the tree this past Christmas was de Blob. It’s a great game all-around, it’s third party, and apparently it did very well–even better than Nintendo’s Wario Land: Touch Shake It!, which released on the same day.
The game did so well, in fact, that THQ all but confirmed a sequel will be coming our way.
A sign of things to come from third parties on the Wii? We’ll see, but it’s a solid start.
Tankooni
hmm wasnt it wario land shake it
i still want to get de blob and a hole bunch more games
Peshue
A game built for the Wii in particular, with a unique premise and good use of motion controls did well. Holy crap, the heads of executives all over must be exploding at a realization like this.
Juja
Wario Land: Touch It!, eh?
tylor
Peshue is right. it’s a great game, i bought a copy and the more i play it the more i like it.
EdEN
And Wario Land: Shake It! is just as great as de Blob. Both games are fun and you should give them (along with Dewy’s Adventure, Elebits and Kororinpa) a chance.
rdaneel72
de Blob was great, but where can they go next? I would hate to just see more of the same, but I can’t imagine a direction for it to go. I don’t want a crappy sequel.
John H.
de Blob is awesome. I think the best thing about it is that it turns out to be surprisingly deep to score attack. Every block the player completes is rated according to the number of different colors that went into coloring it, with most points awarded for using all seven. To get a competitive score for an area the player is going to have to do that for EVERY block, which means a lot of route optimization, careful platforming and color juggling. And yet, none of that is required to win the game at all.
There are other unexpected little design touches in there as well. I was surprised to notice that picking a time extension during a mission, for example, increases both the level AND mission timers. It’s a really clever idea.
Jonkind
It’s great to see de Blob get a sequel resulting from strong sales. Firstly, it’s great to see a successful 3rd party game and secondly, it’s a proven example to other 3rd parties that they can be successful too, and that putting the time in to make a quality product can pay off.
deepthought
cool- wonder if it will come to ds?
also, be cautious about saying the game did “well.” let’s not confuse that with the idea that the game availed itself of the wii market; it only sold 230k.
this is a statement about being able to get enough return for little investment to justify further similar future investment. it might also have something to say about how brand building may be expected to create stronger sales in the future.
Derek
John H. makes some great points. Aside from shaking the remote to jump, which is irritating and unnecessary, de Blob is solid.