A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia

David Crane's A Boy and His Blob is the patriarch of the puzzle/platform genre. It's also one of the most bizarre and unique NES games.

X/Y Coordinate Display


A simple coordinate display can be enabled with the Game Genie codes. Note that all other status bar updates will be disabled until you change screens, due to a lack of Vblank time.

The first set of values is for the boy, and the second set is for the Blob. Each value represents the character's current screen number, X position, and Y position, respectively.

Unused Screens
The game contains a number of unused screens, several of which are completely unique. Most appear to have been removed to make the game shorter (a strange decision, given the game's already short length). These can be seen in-game by setting RAM address to the desired screen ID (set  to the same value or toss a ketchup jellybean to make Blob appear).

Screens, , , and are particularly odd, as they consist of a limerick in various stages of completion. Judging from the slightly suggestive ending, it was likely used to test the screen drawing code and not actually intended to appear in the final game.

Screen is identical to the Evil King's chamber seen in-game, except the Evil King is missing. He does not normally disappear after you dump the vitamins on him, rendering this screen unused.

Jellyfish


A simple little jellyfish, probably intended to fill some of the vast emptiness of the underwater areas.

Apple


A nasty-looking apple, probably intended to appear on one of the unused Blobolonian orchard screens.

Bubble


A bubble-like object. The bottom half is shifted downwards by one pixel, for some unknown reason. (An obstacle using these graphics actually appears on two of the unused screens, as shown below.)

Gingerbread Man


It seems the gingerbread men lining the walls outside the Evil King's chamber were originally supposed to attack you! How unpleasant.

Green Bubbles


Screens BC and BE both feature glass jars in the background that spew large, green bubbles. Neither the jars nor bubbles appear anywhere else in the game. As is to be expected, touching a bubble means instant death.



Strangely, in the Japanese version, the bubbles were replaced with vitamins. Perhaps the developers had considered resurrecting this obstacle?

Regional Differences
The title was made more colorful in the Japanese release.

The boy was given a more cartoony look in the Japanese version.