Mobile Games #11

Bloo Kid (2011)
By: Winterworks / Corona Labs Genre: Platform Players: 1 Difficulty: Easy-Medium
Featured Version: Android Also Available For: iOS

I discovered this appealing-looking game quite a while ago now - a couple of years, probably - when I happened to see its sequel on sale in the Steam store. My OCD won't allow me to play that first though, so I had to track down the first game. Happily, I found it's a free (with ads) Android game, and of a type I enjoy a lot, namely a single-screen platformer. As appealing as that was though, it also set off an alarm. Games of this type are frequently a lot of fun but they also generally require quick and precise movements - would that be possible with a mobile game? I now own a Bluetooth game pad but it doesn't seem to work with this game, so I guess I had little choice but to find out how good (or bad) the touchscreen controls were. Let's hope it's the former!

They are at least simple: left, right and jump. That's it! Using them, your job is to guide what I assume to be the titular character - a 'kid' with 'bloo' clothes/hair - around each screen dispatching the many terrible beasties that roam them. This is done in the time-honoured tradition of jumping on their heads (or just vaguely on top of them if they don't have heads). There are several 'waves' of them per stage but once you eventually get rid of them all, it's on to the next stage. Once the last enemy is bummed, you also have a limited time to grab a sparkly star that falls somewhere on the screen, enough of which will unlock other areas. There are 96 stages in total too - eight themed worlds containing twelve stages each - so there's a lot to get through if you're going to reach your goal. Which is some sort of girlfriend-rescuing nonsense, incidentally.

It's not a complicated game - there are no power-ups or side-quests or anything like that - it's literally just a case of jumping on hundreds or enemies which include blobs, fire-spitting flowers, skeletons, knights, mushrooms, etc. Some require more than one bounce and these include the bosses that reside at the end of each world. Bloo Kid has a decent number of hit points and, being a modern(ish) game, you can restart as many times as you want if you lose them all. I noticed the version of the game in the video below has a timer too, which appears to be extended by killing enemies, but the version I played didn't have that. Maybe it was added (or removed) in an update or something. Hmm, anyway, it's not the hardest game in the world in any case... if you can manage with touchscreen controls that is, which was my biggest worry.

It's true that I took a lot of hits in the game due to missing a 'button', but I guess it's also true that this is no one's fault but my own. I'm sure most of you probably don't have huge hands with giant sausage fingers though, so you'll probably be okay. The controls are simple too, and if you get on with them, you should enjoy what is a very decent platformer. The graphics are nice and colourful - it reminds me an Amiga game actually - and the sprites are great. I also like the presentation. There's a brief intro showing Bloo Kid and what I assume is his girlfriend (who has pink hair, incredibly enough) enjoying a relaxing time in the woods only for some flying ghost pirate thing to come along and grab her, and there are related cut-scenes between worlds. Even the audio is nice, consisting of non-annoying spot effects and catchy chip-choons for each world.

The only problem with the game as far as I can tell really, aside from the possibly-unreliable controls for people with fat fingers, is some slightly squonky stage design. As mentioned, there's a lot of jumping involved here and you can perform a high jump by bouncing off an enemy's idiotic head, but this can cause problems. If, for example, the sparkly star, or even the last enemy is on a high platform and you can only reach it by bouncing up to it courtesy of the last non-elevated enemy, if you miss it you're screwed. I'm just nit-picking now though, I know. It won't take too much effort to get the now-traditional three star rating for each stage in any case, and considering it's a free game (even the ads aren't intrusive), it's a fantastic little game. An appealing 8/16-bit style and simple, fun gameplay make Bloo Kid well worth downloading.

RKS Score: 8/10

Gameplay Video: Here's a video of the much of thee game being played by YouTube user J2_2. Don't watch if you want to avoid spoilers!