De Blob Q&A - THQ Gamers Day 2008 Feature

Originally scheduled to arrive earlier in 2008 on Nintendo's DS and Wii platforms, THQ's De Blob looked like one of the more playful titles on show at the publisher's recent Gamers Day.

Following a blob of colour as it tries to free his world from a hue-sucking corporation called 'INKT Corporation', De Blob's playful setting comes across like a mix between an interactive 'Paint by Numbers' and Namco Bandai's Katamari.

TVG cornered Lead Producer, Nick Hagger at Gamers Day to discuss the title...

TVG: First of all Nick, can you give us a quick outline of De Blob's premise?

Well De Blob is all about making the world fun again, that's the simplest way of explaining it. The world in De Blob is a very boring place; it's cold, it's miserable, it's had the colour sucked out of it. The police stalk the streets, there are cameras watching everywhere watching what the people are doing their mindless jobs. Their tedium produces misery, and their misery produces Ink, which is then used to pollute the world.

TVG: ...so it's basically based on the real world then?

I wouldn't say that...but yeah, you're right! You can read De Blob on many levels, but it doesn't have to be particularly deep; however, I think that there's something there that people respond to.

So what De Blob does is wake up and decides to do something about the terrible situation, so he starts doing his thing. The INKT Corporation has occupied this place called Chroma City. God knows why they're doing it, but they are...it's a mystery that's revealed later in the game. They're polluting the world with Ink, which is a toxic black ooze that drains the colour from everything. The secret of where Ink comes from is revealed in the game too, and I don't want to spoil it by revealing it in the interview - it's kinda gross...but funny.

It's sort of a serious game...wait, what am I saying? It's not a serious game, it's funny. It's not anything particularly profound, but you'll get a smile out of it and go, "Goddamn, I'm bringing the funk!"

TVG: It certainly looks like De Blob is aiming to attract the casual market, but is there enough depth to grab the attention of core gamers too?

Yeah, I think there is. I think there's plenty of depth; there's a whole bunch of different modes to go through. I think that the depth is something that's perhaps not obvious to begin with. The music for instance is quite a big part of it. There've been twelve tracks recorded for the game; there's a range of styles from a Cuban-style track to a funky Disco one. It'll blow your mind when you hear the whole soundtrack. The main thing is that we want people to find moods in the music that'll lift them out of the grind of their day. De Blob is really designed to be something that you play at home and get your groove on.

I guess it's casual in the sense that you can casually pick it up and play it, but it's also strangely addictive. Everybody can play it, but the music is very intricate and interactive too. The more you paint in different colours, the more you play around with the music; it's quite creative and you feel like you're doing something worthy at the end of it.

TVG: A lot of third-party developers have struggled to be as creative with the Wii controllers compared to Nintendo; how difficult was it to produce a compelling and creative control system?

It's hard (laughs). That's not an answer! It's hard, but during pre-production, we spent a lot of time playing around with a sphere and the paint effects, and working out what felt right. From a design perspective, working with the Wii is nice to someway model an activity that occurs in the real world, because then people aren't going, "Dude, how do I do this strange ting you're asking me to do?" In the case of Blob, he kinda looks like a tennis or squash ball, so the action to make him move using the accelerometer is something that's easy to wrap your head around.

I don't think that we've pushed it too far into abstract 'Wii space', because I think that puts a lot of people off. There are some surprising Wii moments, like where you do some transformation moments by maraca-shaking motions, and use the pointer to draw all over the screen. There's a whole lot of stuff.

TVG: Microsoft has spent many of the last few months trying to push Xbox 360 onto a more a casual market, with a price drop that takes the Arcade SKU below the Wii, for instance. Are there plans to bring De Blob onto the other hardware platforms, and if not, what would the extra grunt of the other two platforms allowed you guys to achieve?

There is no Xbox 360 SKU in the foreseeable future, but I applaud them for going for the casual market. We've been inspired by Nintendo's broader ethos of making games for everyone; it's not like there's a particular market slice that they're going after. I think that's one of the things I love about them is the clever strategy they pursue.

It's one of the things we've tried to bring out in De Blob too; it's something that appeals to anyone that has an open mind or wants to play something different. I don't think depth is something that necessarily equates to complexity or difficulty. De Blob is deep because you can continually play it and get something out of it. You can return to things that you've done before, but still find enjoyment in them. And I think that the act of being creative and painting and stuff, allows you a degree of expression that not many other games give you. I think those kind of things appeal to a wide section of people.

I can't really imagine any FPS psychos pick up De Blob and go, "Oh my God, I've had an epiphany...I'm going to drop my weapons and start painting!" I hope that happens, but you know what I mean. There's something there for everyone, it's not necessarily a niche that we're chasing. I don't think we sat down and said, "We must be casual!" or "We must be hardcore!" it was more about, "How do we do something that we're going to find fun, and that other people are going to find fun?"

TVG: There are several multiplayer modes, but I understand that there won't be Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection functionality to take De Blob online; why was that decision made?

During the period that we made De Blob, the SDK wasn't available. I think Nintendo at the time was still putting its head together about how online was going to work.

We had some ideas about online early on, but hopefully they're things we can add a sequel.

TVG: Talking about a sequel, do you have any ideas on where to take De Blob in the next instalment so it doesn't feel stale?

Ok, well there is any number of things that we could do. There was an entire suite of features that we cut out of this one, just because we didn't have enough time and some of them were pretty high risk. We wanted to keep it simple and get it right which, fingers crossed, I hope we've done.

But with the new one, I'd love to go online; I'd love to look at co-operative online gaming. I'd also like to look at something that was a difficult thing to pull off for this one, but if we started the code base from scratch, I'd like to do things like postcards so that people could take snapshots of areas they've painted up and put them on an online gallery or something.

Other things that we'd do would be to provide a broader range of colours...actually, there are heaps of things that we could so. We've only scratched the surface of De Blob! It's like saying that Mario doesn't need to be doing many more things, he's a nice character to play with. If we keep the gameplay pure and not try to add too many things to change it...I think the level design is one of the significant things about this game. The levels are as much the star as De Blob is; obviously, we're only showing you the tutorial level at the moment, but there are some really epic levels to paint. You get the impression that there aren't enough hours in the day to paint - so yeah, I think that there's enough there to be getting on with for a sequel. But in an 'x' amount of time, if a sequel comes out, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong and say "Dude, this is the same stuff...!"

Also, I think the music will be very different too. This time we've got down a funky psychedelic feel in this one. Maybe it'll take a different route next time.

TVG: And what's the release date for De Blob at the moment?

September 22nd. It's global - Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific.

TVG: Thanks for your time Nick.

TVG would like to thank Nick Hagger for taking the time to chat to us. De Blob is scheduled for release on both Wii and Nintendo DS from September 22nd.