Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Blobbers

Bruma Hobo

Lurker
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
2,409
For turn-based, Wizards&Warriors, if you can get it to run on a modern system. Level design is just as good, if not better, as later Wizardries (designed by the very same DW Bradley), but systems are more straightforward and forgiving, and battles are much faster.
Wizards and Warriors is a worth-playing game for its outstanding level design alone but everything else is just average, I would never recommend it over Wizardry 8, or an early nineties Might & Magic game if accessibility is that important.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
I would never recommend it over Wizardry 8, or an early nineties Might & Magic game if accessibility is that important.
I would, but then again I never understood the appeal of M&M games in general. To me they're just silly, simplistic and overblown - not unenjoyable, just nothing special.
I hold Wiz8 and W&W is roughly equal quality games (different strengths, different weaknesses), but Wiz8 is definitely not an entry-level blobber. And if you're going for something more hardcore, there's no reason to choose it over Wiz7.
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2016
Messages
3,640
Location
Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
Eye of the Beholder - Classic Real-time blobber, like Dungeon Master only with D&D ruleset. Pure survival dungeon, no town, no shops, just your party, what you can scavenge, and your wits. Can carry your party over into Eye of the Beholder 2 and 3.

Wizardry 8 - An attempt to modernize blobbers at the time - Has a learning curve but it's really worth it, fantastic party-building and unique combat style. Goofy NPCs and PC personalities are an acquired taste for some, but I thought they added a lot of character to the game.

Might and Magic World of Xeen (4&5) - Best Might and Magic games, as agreed by series creator himself. Ridiculously epic scope, explore two games top to bottom (literally, haha). Pretty accessible and fast-paced, despite it's age. I'd recommend it over Isle of Terra or any of the older Wizardrys.
 

Bruma Hobo

Lurker
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
2,409
but Wiz8 is definitely not an entry-level blobber.
Citation needed, Wizardry 8 could be the best entry to the genre. There may be other, more noob-friendly games, but they also tend to be shallower, Wiz8 on the other hand leaves an excellent first impression (at least until the Arnika road), and unlike Wizards and Warriors it also has excellent music and voice-acting.
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2016
Messages
3,640
Location
Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
For turn-based, Wizards&Warriors, if you can get it to run on a modern system. Level design is just as good, if not better, as later Wizardries (designed by the very same DW Bradley), but systems are more straightforward and forgiving, and battles are much faster.
Wizards and Warriors is a worth-playing game for its outstanding level design alone but everything else is just average, I would never recommend it over Wizardry 8, or an early nineties Might & Magic game if accessibility is that important.

I recently went back and installed Wizards and Warriors, and I can't recommend it to anyone.

-Took the first warrior quest

-Walked out of town

-Spent 20 minutes trying to click on fucking bats

-Warrior quest target shows up, none of my characters can hit him

-Die

Lol I wonder how I ever put up with that game.
 

HeatEXTEND

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Feb 12, 2017
Messages
3,928
Location
Nedderlent
I am thinking about the "blobber" genre.

1. Are Betrayal at Krondor, Realms of Arkania and Gold Box games considered "blobbers"? They all have tactics-style combat.
2. Are there "blobbers" that are not RPGs?
3. Do all "blobbers" feature more than one character in the party?

No.
Pikmin/starcraft 2 :lol:
No.
 
Joined
Sep 7, 2013
Messages
6,165
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Serpent in the Staglands Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
It is fair to call BoK, RoA, and the Gold Box blobber hybrids since they use the PCs the party is a "blob" in exploring and interacting with the world outside of combat. This actually does matter, for reasons like the player is prohibited from kiting because he is a blob until he is in combat and it is too late.

In contrast, Lords of Xulima is non-blobber in exploration but blobber in combat.
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
guys, i see a lot of people posting simply that "it's a game where you don't see party members because they are a blob", but the various people who wrote that are forgetting to mention why:

- the entire point of that abstraction is so that the combat system can utilize:

a) rows and ranks that allow the utilization of such things as a vanguard and a rearguard
b) the ability to allow the game to utilize range-dependant values for the items and methods of targeting and attacking
c) and lastly to allow the combat system the freedom to be able to dictate in a grannular fashion every detail regarding an action taken by any unit during combat

they made it a "blob" because, for lack of a better term, in order to achieve the proper balance between complexity and accessability and be able to include the above elements which are usually mostly only seen in over-head-view type "tactical" games which allow the player to see a large "field" of the area and gauge player and enemy unit positioning and things of that sort--

-- thus to get all that shit into their combat system the best way they found to do it in the most minimalistic/abstracted way possible (i.e. the devs were very limited in what they could do) was to forgo altogether this stuff that we as gamers usually take for granted.

you know, like "animations", and "graphics". heh. Honestly this isn't that complicated (to the OP, once again).

My recommendations for playing a (turn-based) blobber and actually enjoying it (if you've never been into them before) are...

- as mentioned already the SNES remakes of Wizardry 1, 2, 3, and 5 are really great. You can emulate them on a fucking tablet and level up your Ninja while taking a massive dump. what the fuck more could one ask for? The snes versions also feature the Super Nintendo's very best 2d Sprite Art ever done for any cartridge, as the Wizardry 1/2/3 cartridge containing the remakes of those 3 scenarios was released in the very last year of the SNES' life-time.

It may sound ironic that I'm sperging over the graphics considering this is supposed to be blobber talk, but seriously, the enemy sprites are fucking gorgeous in the SNES versions. WIZARDRY 6 (VI) also has a SNES remake, btw, and it also features incredible sprite Art and, needless to say, its graphics put the DOS version of Wiz 6 to shame.

images
36327-Wizardry_VI_-_Kindan_no_Mafude_(Japan)_[En_by_TiCo_v0.30b]_(~Wizardry_-_Bane_of_the_Cosmic_Forge)_(Incomplete)-1459637082.png
16696.jpg
images
hqdefault.jpg


(There are also the very same Wiz remakes for Playstation 1, but they use polygonal graphics and the enemy sprite work is not as good as the SNES versions. There are minor differences between them, mainly that the PS1 versions feature a beautiful string music OST while SNES versions obviously feature chip sounds; also the SNES versions are slightly easier because they allow thieves to utilize abilities that they didn't have in the original versions and some people say the dice rolls are more forgiving in the snes version but honestly, having personally played through Wiz 1/2/3/5 on snes and also played through Wiz 1/2/3/4/5 on PS1, the difficulty level is the same IMO).

- might and magic 1/2/3/10 for DOS and 10 obviously for Windows PC. I'm actually a complete newcomer to the MM series and my first one was recently MM10, but downloaded 3 and am enjoying it as well. It's like Wizardry except less dungeons and a lot more LARPing around countrysides. Also unlike Wizardry a lot of people to talk to and do shit for them and there are a lot of non-gameplay areas to visit and explore. Benefit is some consider this to be a truer RPG experience as you're not just traipsing around a dungeon for 100 hours, but the downside is that the game doesn't offer the singularly intensive instances of "dungeoneering" that the Wiz-clone will offer.

Either way, so far I'm enjoying 10 and 3 quite well.

- Paper Sorcerer for the Windows PC is an indie game that came out a few years ago that utilizes Wiz-style blobber gameplay complete with a plot that is a direct homage to the infamous plot of Wiz 4. In Paper Sorcerer you are a human who is mysteriously transported to a strange land, first in imprisoned you soon break free of your cell and acquire the ability to summon "monsters" like vampires, mummys, etc, to function as your party members.

combat is turn-based, and it is NOT grid-based; instead you move in first-person view like an FPS using WASD and you look around with your mouse (although there's not that much need to move the camera around). The game's graphics are in beautiful and distinctive "black and white" style monochrome and the enemy art is top notch by going for a simulacrum of drawings come to life.
itchioScreen.png
images
pap3.jpg
maxresdefault.jpg
7782b4b6bb2ed96bacf197e9411ecef7_original.jpg
images


- for the NINTENDO DS entertainment system I recommend the Wiz-clone "The Dark Spire", which was actually developed by the same studio who did all of the Wizardry remakes for the Playstation 1. This game was their "dream game" and it was their reward for successfully making the Wizardry remakes. Instead of going on about it, I'll let the pictures talk instead:
the-dark-spire-20090416040558354.jpg

images
images
123707-diff.jpg
images
The_Dark_Spire-3.jpg
ss-010.jpg
hqdefault.jpg


- Elminage Gothic for Windows PC was my very first true blobber experience that I played feverishly and it is thanks to this game that I then discovered the Wizardry titles, and now in turn the Wizardry titles led me to discover Bard's Tale and Might and Magic as well as opened my eyes to dozens of RPGs that, in the past, I would not have considered worth playing becasue...

...I used to think "blobbers" were primitive dungeon simulators that didn't contain role-playing, and now I realize how incredibly wrong and incorrect I was; they are instead the truest and most purest distillations of RPG design and their emphasis on rock-solid game play and its mechanical systems make "blobbers" games that are not only good RPGs but also good video games that stand the test of time and never become tiring to play because the point of playing them is to enjoy their game play and not, usually, their "story".
maxresdefault.jpg
Elminage%2BGothic%2B2.jpg
EG_Review_1.jpg
2014-08-29_00005.jpg
51bb59e2a63a1fd280e2bd83ea1bdda8feb701be.jpg
IMG%5D


------

btw, don't assume (to the OP) that "oh, so all blobbers are like the stuff aweigh is posting about int hose pictures". Far from it; I am simply making what I personally consider good blobbers for a beginning player to dive into their mechanics.

This post is not meant to try to argue or whatever that THESE are the best ones, or whatever the fuck. Like I said: these make for good first-blobbers, IMO, of the Wizardry-clone style.

------

real time blobbers are something I don't enjoy much, but I plan to someday devote my energy and will into "understanding" them. I'll leave it to the RT blobber lovers to post about those, though I assume a great RT blobber for a beggining player would, of course, be:

- Grimrock 1/2; I tried both of these and I enjoyed the time I spent playing Grimrock 1 much more than Grimrock 2. I preferred Grimrock 1's stronger focus on good dungeon design and it offered better and more interesting navigation and exploration than Grimrock 2 which instead, in a weird direction, barely features dungeons at all and has a lot of walking through large, empty, badly-designed "over world" areas.

I have been told that I should play Eye of the Beholder for my first true RT blobber, and I'll probably do just that eventually.

-------

There are also blobbers that are neither real-time NOR are they Wiz-derivatives, such as the Etrian Odyssey series or the aforementioned 7 MAGES blobber that V_K as written extensively about.

Also D.W. Bradley's unique style of blobber design, such as in the games Wizardry 7 and the game Wizards and Warriors, feature an... "interesting" blend of classic Wizardry but turned into something I can't really truly describe, but basically boils down to: dungeons, overworld areas, towns, lots of puzzles, magic systems, races, classes, etc.

Bradley's 2 best blobbers, Wiz 7 and WaW, aim to do it all, as you can read in the previous sentence. In my opinion he fails at it, but a lot of people disagree with this opinion and love those two blobbers.

-------

There is also an upcoming fresh-off-the-oven Western-made one called Starcrawlers that releases in mid JUNE. It's turn-based, grid-based, and I played the beta build recently and it is very enjoyable.

move with WASD, look around w/ mouse, engage in turn-based combat, map out and navigate "dungeons" though in this case they are space ships usually and the "twist" is that there are factions in the game, 3 i think, and depending on which missions you complete you'll align yourself with one of those factions and thus (potentially/theoretically) the game will provide at least 3 different experiences.
 
Last edited:
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
there are also dozens of "hybrid" blobbers that are real-time but simultaenously both Wiz-clone AND might and magic-clones, and other shit, like for example:

- Demise: Ascension

control multiple parties, engage in combat, acquire loot, lose your sanity in the endless and merciless dungeons that give zero fucks. Combat system is not turn-based but neither is it "real time"; i dunno how to describe it.

also features simulationist elements which are things not usually found in any blobber. this is the "Nethack" equivalent of blobbers, in my opinion.

ny1dZrdZSr49DIcU-soEAQnD4ar_g2MTfL9af_KjPOxkPyxMNJvruaO9RLyPPOTZyichn7t80gtbbVedWiY2Q4DlKaYiWkyXgJBi4UfN=w530-h398-p

hqdefault.jpg


... and check out the kind of dungeons you'll be clearing in Demise:
Barracks.jpg


EDIT: and don't forget about the Bard's Tale games as well.

Anyway i'm already veering off topic and just posting blobbers I like. heh. I'll stop for now.
 

octavius

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
19,183
Location
Bjørgvin
aweigh, you must be the world's most fanatic blobberer.
I love 'em too, but it's not like it's the only genre worth playing.

As for Real Time blobbers, you really should try Dungeon Master. It's the original RT Blobber and was only surpassed by its sequel Chaos Strikes Back. Eye of the Beholder has NPC interaction and more varied graphics, but DM is superior in what really counts: level design, puzzles, character development and combat.
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
i been playing rpgs of some sort or another since a wee young lad and that includes table top ofc, anyway my point is that i reached a dark time in my life, actually almost exactly around that period of time when Troika was dying (and then DIED), where afterwards i simply couldn't find ANY FUCKING RPGS WORTH PLAYING. and since i no longer enjoy most video games, as i've simply played them all already back in the day (i.e. It is hard for me to ever even get excited about, say, playing some new kickstarter platformer or whatever because i've played millions of them and there is zero possibility of the new ones being worth playing); so that left me with no games that piqued my interest.

that was when i discovered Street Fighter. cue half a decade, and counting, of absolutely loving fighting games. it/they are the only games that truly can serve as legitimate sport, unlike the more simulationist-laden football/basketball/team-sports games out there. fighting games are unique in that they are basically the video game world's equivalent of playing chess, or Go.

but anyway, street fighter, blah blah, and suddenly cue for the first time coming back to RPGs after years and years (it was due to shadowrun returns kickstarter), and then coming back to the CODEX forums (had been not posting here for about a 4-5 year stretch), and then "discovering" blobbers. i had never imagined before i would find an RPG that eschewed all the crap i had grown up to find trite and boring (i.e. almost every single RPG story, almost every single RPG quest, almost every single NPC in an RPG, etc), and instead focusing on giving me the meatiest RPG gameplay I could want. so yeah, it's a "honeymoon phase", but now... i may be ruined, to be honest.

TL;DR the codexian "choice and consequence" dream is no longer interesting to me. Me enjoying these Wiz-clones so much is just an example of discovering something new you never thought was "that good", something that filled a void you didn't know existed. I didn't grow up playing DOS/Apple II/C64/Amiga, so obviously for me blobbers were almost completely alien.

for majority of my life, mostly due to the codex, I thought RPGs were all about branching content (heh) and "great writing" and having "multiple quest solutions". I no longer believe that these things are the primary RPG elements one should enjoy, and i'll stop there so as not to go full-edgelord.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
I grew up playing all those games, I still have them in boxes. Is this the first time you're playing them? If so, I envy you.

Don't insult me. Only Codexer posers write about things they don't know about.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
If it's on the Amiga, I can play it. Love for Amiga outstrips all. Greatest hardware and OS ever made. I won't be covering DOS conversion shit. Plus I've played meynaf's customs (no other Codexer has), so I'm qualified to cover the genre.

This may end up representing a gradual transition for my blog: from PC RPGs, to Amiga RPGs, to Amiga games in general. Since it's called Lilura1 I can change what the blog covers completely.
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
Lilura

are the Amiga versions "better" than other verions? (i mean, better than like the dos versions or whatever). i'm gonna start bard's tale 2 once i finish BT1 (been playing it via dosbox) but i decided to google "amiga rpg list" and it has almost all the same ones as dos. (and c64 i guess, which is the other platform during that time; apple II was already a bit old)

i need maximum graphics whoring, heh. i looked up info about the amiga versions of some games on mobygames but goddamn pictures aren't good enough to really tell, plus obviously there is no mention of any possible in-game disparities between versions.

for example: if i remember correctly there's a few DOS rpgs, time period that of around when pool of radiance came out, that didn't have an "OST" but other competing versions on other platforms did. it's hard to find an answer to questions like this cos nobody ever bothers to detail this shit.

(and the fact that 99% of all these old RPGs were played on DOS, and thus whatever info one finds now via googling was typed by a DOS-user).

(getting dat hype level rising for BT 4 already!) (can't wait to be crushed and disapponited by Fargo once more!) <3
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
When devs bothered to tap into custom chipset, Amiga v. shits on DOS v.

But his didn't happen much with RPG devs because they were clueless about Amiga hardware (blitter, copper, extended palette, hardware scrolling, sampled sound etc). This is a source of acute butthurt for me.

I hate DOSBox and the DOS era of gaming in general. The Amiga was sexy and DOS was what your father ran on a soulless IBM compatible.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
Wiz8 on the other hand leaves an excellent first impression (at least until the Arnika road)
And then a couple of hours later (by Trinton?) you realize you're stuck with a party that can't win shit and have to restart from scratch, but just can't bring yourself to replay all the sliow-ass combats. Based on true story.
unlike Wizards and Warriors it also has excellent music and voice-acting
You don't like a good piece of rat??!
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom