David Crane’s NES game A Boy And His Blob and its Game Boy sequel The Rescue Of Princess Blobette are coming to the Switch and PlayStation.
Ziggurat Interactive and Limited Run Games have announced that A Boy And His Blob: Retro Collection will be launching for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on 17 October. A PC version is also apparently in the works, and will launch at a later date.
The two-game collection features the 1990 NES game A Boy And His Blob: Trouble On Blobolonia, in addition to its 1990 Game Boy sequel, The Rescue Of Princess Blobette. Both the US and Japanese versions of the games will be included in the collection.
Both games are the work of Pitfall creator David Crane, one of the founders of Activision back in 1979. Crane left Activision in the mid-1980s, and following a brief stint at Hasbro, he joined Absolute Entertainment in 1988. Absolute was set up by another former Activision employee, Garry Kitchen, alongside his brother Dan Kitchen and Alex DeMeo and John Van Ryzin, and A Boy aAd His Blob is one of the company’s most famous games, alongside various Simpsons titles such as Bart Vs. The Space Mutants.
A Boy And His Blob is a puzzle platformer in which the titular Boy joins up with the amorphous Blobert, whose shape can be changed by feeding it 14 different kinds of jelly beans. The aim is to save the planet of Blobolonia from an evil emperor, and the shape-changing hook made for some unique if extremely challenging gameplay.
The Game Boy sequel, The Rescue Of Princess Blobette, features similarly challenging shapeshifting gameplay, although it generally received more positive reviews than the NES original. But whereas A Boy And His Blob has previously been rereleased on Nintendo’s Wii Virtual Console, this new Retro Collection marks the first official rerelease of The Rescue Of Princess Blobette since its 1990 debut.
One notable omission from this collection is WayForward’s brilliant 2009 reimagining of A Boy and His Blob, which was originally released for the Wii and was also published by Ziggurat Interactive. However, that game is still available separately, and has now been ported to various modern consoles, including the Switch.
A Boy And His Blob: Retro Collection adds quality-of-life improvements such as save states, in addition to PlayStation trophies and various filters. But there’s no indication that it will ship with any extras, such as developer interviews.
Limited Run is producing physical versions of A Boy And His Blob: Retro Collection, and it will also be available digitally on the Nintendo and PlayStation stores.
Read more: Limited Run Games | Everything announced in its LRG3 showcase
