i was half-way through an insanely long winded post and i was typing out the history of plato blobbers and shit when i realized WTF am i doing.
a blobber is a game, should be turn-based, movement should "grid-based" (i.e. the game world is composed of tiles/squares). why? cos that is for mapping purposes. this is intentional.
why? because the main misconception ppl make about blobbers is that they're combat-simulators of some sort (lewl), in reality blobbers main design goal is for the player to explore environments; and historically and traditionally these environments have been dungeon-types.
why? because all,
all of the first blobbers, made in mid-70s and onwards, were directly made with the express goal (among other goals) of reproducing the type fo dungeon diving dungeon exploration the devs enjoyed in war gaming / d and d.
anyway, in closing, the actual "blob" the term refers to is a term of endearment coined, i think, by US, the rpg codex, which aims to explain a distinct type of game play:
- first-person view (and/or featuering a "view-port", which is something similar but not)
- player's party members are all completely abstracted and thus end up becoming simply appendages, limbs, all attached to the "blob" which is constantly walking around through the game world mapping the environment, solving puzzles, defeating enemies, finding great treasure, avoiding deadly traps, and growing always more powerful and sometimes becoming better versions of themselves in the form of a "super" class.
- it is the complete opposite of "modern" RPG approach where it is extremely important that everything is presented and framed properly for the player, be it an overhead/isometric/cavalier view of the game world or the characters, over-the-shoulder style, or some hybrid view or whatever;
- instead the "blobber" aims for a balance between tactical choices (be it for the encounters or for solving the ways needed to "clear" the next dungeon/area); resource management (dovetails with the aforementioned tactical layer as everything is scarce in a good blobber and it is also why the d and d style Vancian spell system fit so snugly it never left and never will leave-- resources are verything: hit points, items, spell castings, amount of maps needed or left in order to explore dungeons, non-combat items that interact with the dungeons/areas like, for example, a simple torch that might go out and be limited in its use and thus a key item when trying to explore/navigate areas of the game where everything is pitch-black, the infamous dark zones--
--and so on and so forth... abstraction + a reasonable array of tactical choices + a very robust additoinal layer of both resource management and "party management" systemic elements, which in any other RPG would be almost impossible to pull off due to high costs of not having the liberty of abstracting everything, i..e not having the liberty of simply making your 8-person party a simple "blob" that doesn't even feature character models or animations.
- the straight-foward approach then, of the Blob, was then optimized and polished through the years by adding a front row and a back row (by simply making the first 3 characters on the left be front, and the 3/rest character names over on the right of those then be the back row)
- then came addition of "ranges" for weapons for both players and enemies, and thus enemies became "groups" and a group would be a row, an enemy row, and behind that group would be perhaps another enemy "row", and THAT row would feature archers who could shoot your characters and damage your front row without allowing you to hit them back
- and to finish this because i'm tired of typing and this subject can be easily researched with google: IMHO the last piece of the recipe was then the magic systems introduced by the two O.G. blobbers, and of course i speak of Wizardry. wizardry 1 shipped with 30+ spells, and to this day 30+ years later that is STILL a very high amount of spells for an RPG! and, obviously, ALL spells were tightly integrated into every facet of the combat, the navigation, the exploration, the looting/acquiring of treasure, the advancement of characters, the management of the player's party (his Blob!), and the spell system even dovetailed almost stupidly well into the other layers:
...the mapping/clearing of the areas/dungeons suddenly increased in depth, complexity and enjoyment due to the unbelievably robust spell system Wizardry introduced; to put it bluntly, ltierally each and every single emergent slice of gameplay ended up feeding off the spell systems or alternatively FEEDING the spell system in a perfect symbiotic relationship.
TL;DR = a blobber is an RPG where its' 1st-person, turn-based, tile-based movement, features at very least 3 and more characters i.e. a PARTY, has some sort of spell system and/or a system that functions like spells to therefore enable the player and give him/her tools to accomplish main goal of a true blobber which would be to create their party (their Blob!), manage them into godhood and powerfully elite levels/classes/gear/etc, and brave the dark depths of the dungeons or whatever areas need to be explored and conquered and that will only be accomlished by killing the enemies -- SOLVING PUZZLES - SOLVING PUZZLES THAT ARE NOT LOGIC-BASED BUT SPATIAL i.e. "how the fuck do i get from this part of the map to THAT part of the map" --
-- and everything is done in the fastest possible way, few animations, no characters obvciously (graphically i mean) because, duh, it's a formless blob, everything is optimized to have as much depth as possible while at the same time making sure that everything is also as
stripped down to its bare essentials as humanly possible.
the minimalistic purity of a good blobber is something that can only be understood of its profundity by personally playing them. it is the purest form of an RPG.
it is, truly, the literal
essence of an RPG distilled to the core and roaring with unbridled vitality hidden under a ton of abstraction.
oh, and also blobbers need to be FAST. seriously, blobber fans like blobbers for a lot of reasons, but a top reason is that blobbers are fast as fuck in everything: combat, exploration, towns, whatever the fuck. due to their bare bones approach (the "graphics" omg omg) and lack of animations (usually!) over the years turns out blobber fans got addicted to FAST resolution of gameplay.