Incline Butthurt Dungeon: Thac0's Ultimate Blobber List

[Morpheus Kitami]

TLDR if that loop is annoying you it won't get better unfortunately.

Your points are all fair. You do grind, but not in the traditional manner; as you said, defeated enemies respawn with higher health 1-2 times before being gone forever. So you basically have to make at least half a dozen trips through the overworld and the dungeons of each map, killing most weaker spawns to allow you to move onto stronger spawns. Damage calculations appear to factor most heavily in this order: comparison between your Ability and the enemy's max HP > Weapon type (certain weapons have an outsized effect against certain monster types) > Weapon strength. Ability vs HP is very difficult to circumvent (if not outright impossible most of the time), hence the world wandering to find spawns with low enough HP to kill. But weapon type and strength are a little more fuzzy. It's possible to kill monster weak to a Wave weapon with your Maxi Beam, for instance. It just takes a lot longer.

Indoor monsters never respawn. So the gameplay loop is basically: kill smaller monsters in the overworld > kill the first set of indoor monsters > killer stronger monsters in the overworld > kill the next set of indoor monsters > repeat until the map is clear. One final enormous point against the game is that, as far as I can tell, you need to kill absolutely every single monster in the game in order to be able to do more than 2-5 damage to the final boss. Very upsetting if you happen to miss a spawn and have no clue where it is (this made me quit my last playthrough a couple years back).

Having played it a little longer, I can see how you like it, but its not quite as good if you don't have that nostalgia for it. The whole sub-weapons working better against certain enemies is pretty clever for an action game from 1986, albeit I would have liked to have a visual or descriptive way of figuring out what enemies are vulnerable to which kinds of damage. Plus you can actually run past enemies in interior combat, a nice feature if you end up fighting something you can kill, though I suspect this might screw one later.
That said, I won't be playing it any further. The FM-7 version I was playing stopped registering my inputs in menus about an hour in, and the DOS version wasn't working. Alas, I am not going to be playing every version of the game to see if it doesn't have the same glitch in it. Its better than I first implied, but I'm not sure its very good as a blobber.

 

[Thac0]

I will add another game soon:

This is an extremely minimalistic jap dungeon crawler that yet gets all the things that make the genre great, and is very enjoyable to play as a result. Resident grognard CryptRat wrote some glowing reviews for it in the thread. Codex mod Zed recommended it aswell, which is funny since it is the first post I have seen from him just about ever. I guess we don't hang around in the same kinds of threads.
I want to finish it before I add it because it is so short, meanwhile it would be nice to hear from those who played it if it should have any combination of ★ and ⚔ due to its unusual attributes of very short length but very high quality in an indie game.

Also another candidate for addition:


Looks to be a plain good indie dungeon crawler, but I will neither play nor add Early Access games to this list.

 

[thesecret1]

This is an extremely minimalistic jap dungeon crawler that yet gets all the things that make the genre great, and is very enjoyable to play as a result.

Yep, played it a couple days ago. Very, very simple – basically the minimal blobber with nothing else on top. But it's well done and fun to play.

I've also played Rance VI quite a while ago – it's great fun, but might need some sort of a disclaimer – basically, it has a large focus on story (if you are a storyfag, you WANT this game), but it also expects you to know all the previous installments in the series, and makes exactly zero compromises on it – characters last seen several installments ago WILL make an appearance, WILL have a major part in the plot, and WON'T have any sort of introduction whatsoever – you are fully expected to have perfect knowledge of previous games, none of which are blobbers.

 

[Arthandas]

I've also played Rance VI quite a while ago – it's great fun

You must be fucking braindead to think this shit is fun. It's one of the grindiest games I ever played. You constantly fight the same copy pasted groups of enemies, every boss fight is the same, zero tactics involved. Not to mention simple, repetitive and boring dungeons or lack of any balance - Rance can two-shot many bosses with his Rance Attack and you can permastun even the optional endgame bosses.

If you think PFiFB is "well done and fun to play", then it's probably dumbest blobber possible.

 

[thesecret1]

I've also played Rance VI quite a while ago – it's great fun

You must be fucking braindead to think this shit is fun. It's one of the grindiest games I ever played. You constantly fight the same copy pasted groups of enemies, every boss fight is the same, zero tactics involved. Not to mention simple, repetitive and boring dungeons or lack of any balance - Rance can two-shot many bosses with his Rance Attack and you can permastun even the optional endgame bosses.

If you think PFiFB is "well done and fun to play", then it's probably dumbest blobber possible.

I played it years ago, so I don't remember the pecularities, but I do remember it was fun. Your opinion is noted and discarded.

 

[Pink Eye]

Your opinion is noted and discarded.

Whoa. That's a nice comeback.

 

[Thac0]

I added Potato Flowers with a star in the Japanese some Anime category, because while the aesthetic is not anime per se chibi style is an acquired taste (yet nowhere near as acquired as full on moe). I added it with a star, as literally noone who played it on this website disliked it yet.
Rance VI is already in the weeb category with an 18+ disclaimer thesecret1

I am taking another break from the Internet, because fuck I hate web 2.0 with my entire soul. Maybe I will try this digital minimalism thing. Might be a while before another update, but then again, might be a while before another blobber releases.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

Should we update this great list?
I upset the seer.

 

[dbx]

What about Amiga's Hired Guns? It's technically a blobber, not turn based, and a mild RPG with a few fixed stats per character.

 

[Sibelius]

Looks like the OP has overlooked Knightmare.

Knightmare is a 1991 Amiga/Atari ST blobber based on a UK fantasy pseudo RPG TV show of the same name. It's decent from what I remember, not as good as EotB or Wizardry 7, but a lot of fun. Pretty good graphics for 1991 when you compare it to something like Wizardry 6 that came out just a year earlier.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Eye of the Beholder (GBA version)

Did someone play this?
Is the combat any good?

 

[cvv]

One more into the mix, this was actually one of my favourite RPGs from the early 1990s. Not sure why it was so completely forgotten, it seemed p. high-profile back then, published by SSI and stuff.

 

[Gandalf]

Eye of the Beholder (GBA version)

Did someone play this?
Is the combat any good?

Yes, didn't finished it, but I'd say combat is pretty good for a gameboy title. I don't remember many details, but luckily there is already a thread about this title, maybe it will be more informative:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/the-eye-of-the-beholder-thread.34454/

 

[dbx]

One more into the mix, this was actually one of my favourite RPGs from the early 1990s. Not sure why it was so completely forgotten, it seemed p. high-profile back then, published by SSI and stuff.

View attachment 61725

I played the hell out of it on the Amiga, but it's not a blobber, more like a proto ES-Arena (it came out 2 years earlier then bethesda's game).

 

[cvv]

One more into the mix, this was actually one of my favourite RPGs from the early 1990s. Not sure why it was so completely forgotten, it seemed p. high-profile back then, published by SSI and stuff.

View attachment 61725

I played the hell out of it on the Amiga, but it's not a blobber, more like a proto ES-Arena

Yea but there are solo "blobbers" on the list too so... It's like a blobber where most of your group dies and a sole survivor is pushing on.

 

[dbx]

One more into the mix, this was actually one of my favourite RPGs from the early 1990s. Not sure why it was so completely forgotten, it seemed p. high-profile back then, published by SSI and stuff.

View attachment 61725

I played the hell out of it on the Amiga, but it's not a blobber, more like a proto ES-Arena

Yea but there are solo "blobbers" on the list too so... It's like a blobber where most of your group dies and a sole survivor is pushing on.

Oh ok, I thought grid based movement was a requirement for blobbers, my mistake.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Eye of the Beholder (GBA version)

Did someone play this?
Is the combat any good?

The combat tries to emulate goldbox. I find the game pretty slow. I'd say, piss poor version of WOTES. Amiga is best, pc is ok, haven't tried c64, sega has music and some extras, and gba is just slow imho. 3e rules btw.

 

[Grauken]

One more into the mix, this was actually one of my favourite RPGs from the early 1990s. Not sure why it was so completely forgotten, it seemed p. high-profile back then, published by SSI and stuff.

View attachment 61725

I played the hell out of it on the Amiga, but it's not a blobber, more like a proto ES-Arena

Yea but there are solo "blobbers" on the list too so... It's like a blobber where most of your group dies and a sole survivor is pushing on.

Oh ok, I thought grid based movement was a requirement for blobbers, my mistake.

There are a couple of non-grid based blobbers, most famous M&M 6-9 and Wiz 8, and single-character but grid-based games are usually thrown into the same genre as well as they behave mechanically very similar. But most people make the cut off and exclude single-character non-grid based games, as that opens another can of worms and people start asking why Dark Souls doesn't get included, so in general stuff like Ultima Underworld or Legend of Valor is excluded

 

[dbx]

One more into the mix, this was actually one of my favourite RPGs from the early 1990s. Not sure why it was so completely forgotten, it seemed p. high-profile back then, published by SSI and stuff.

View attachment 61725

I played the hell out of it on the Amiga, but it's not a blobber, more like a proto ES-Arena

Yea but there are solo "blobbers" on the list too so... It's like a blobber where most of your group dies and a sole survivor is pushing on.

Oh ok, I thought grid based movement was a requirement for blobbers, my mistake.

There are a couple of non-grid based blobbers, most famous M&M 6-9 and Wiz 8, and single-character but grid-based games are usually thrown into the same genre as well as they behave mechanically very similar. But most people make the cut off and exclude single-character non-grid based games, as that opens another can of worms and people start asking why Dark Souls doesn't get included, so in general stuff like Ultima Underworld or Legend of Valor is excluded

Ok thanks.
Now I do wonder how a game like Hired Guns would be classified. It's not single character (has 4), but each character has it's own independent window .

 

[Grauken]

Now I do wonder how a game like Hired Guns would be classified. It's not single character (has 4), but each character has it's own independent window .

I would probably throw it in as well as it looks behaves similar to other grid-based games, though as its so unique not sure classifications of this kind matters to the game

 

[Darth Canoli]

The combat tries to emulate goldbox. I find the game pretty slow. I'd say, piss poor version of WOTES. Amiga is best, pc is ok, haven't tried c64, sega has music and some extras, and gba is just slow imho. 3e rules btw.

Here goes my interest.
Thanks.

 

[Rincewind]

Looks like the OP has overlooked Knightmare.

Knightmare is a 1991 Amiga/Atari ST blobber based on a UK fantasy pseudo RPG TV show of the same name. It's decent from what I remember, not as good as EotB or Wizardry 7, but a lot of fun. Pretty good graphics for 1991 when you compare it to something like Wizardry 6 that came out just a year earlier.

My upcoming Amiga games pack will feature this hidden Amiga gem, along with many other great grid-based first-person RPGs (I don't use the b-word ).

 

[Sibelius]

Looks like the OP has overlooked Knightmare.

Knightmare is a 1991 Amiga/Atari ST blobber based on a UK fantasy pseudo RPG TV show of the same name. It's decent from what I remember, not as good as EotB or Wizardry 7, but a lot of fun. Pretty good graphics for 1991 when you compare it to something like Wizardry 6 that came out just a year earlier.

My upcoming Amiga games pack will feature this hidden Amiga gem, along with many other great grid-based first-person RPGs (I don't use the b-word ).

Hope you are including Black Crypt, I remember that being better than Knightmare. A replay and comparison of both after 30+ years may be on the cards.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I have that lovely Box & everything inside. I never got terribly far though. Killed the jailer and some such and probably got distracted by something else.

 

[Rincewind]

Hope you are including Black Crypt, I remember that being better than Knightmare. A replay and comparison of both after 30+ years may be on the cards.

Black Crypt is already included. The configs are under version control, so you can see the contents of the first pack here:

https://github.com/johnnovak/RML-Amiga/tree/main/Configurations/Games

Eventually every single Amiga RPG will be included over time.