Bloboats, Gently Down the Physics Stream
(Rate this game! 159 votes, average: 2.94 out of 5)
Loading...Bloboats is a neat physics game by Markus “MakeGh” Kettunen. He entered the game into the Assembly ’06 Game Development Competition. The competition has some other great-looking titles, so be sure to check out the other entires. I found Bloboats wholly enjoyable, even if it is a little sparse on polish. The readme.txt describes the game as:
Bloboats is a boat racing game in which the objective is to reach the goal as fast as possible, at least faster than your friend does. Perhaps the poor ship, MS Enterprise, is always in distress, or something.
Fun with Buoyancy
The physics modeling in Bloboats is rather straightforward. There isn’t a sophisticated fluid dynamics system at work or anything along those lines. When particles of your boat are underwater, they’re pushed upwards. Gravity and collisions work as you would expect. Your boat’s engine only provides thrust when it’s submerged.
Despite these simple mechanics, I found Bloboats a lot of fun to play. The mechanic had a nice toy feeling to it, and was decently controllable. It took a few minutes to learn how to keep the boat horizontal, but after that things were smooth sailing. The undulating waterline is a neat concept, although overall I think the game doesn’t live up to the potential of its design.
More Content Needed
Primarily, Bloboats needs more content in the way of coherent level design. The game has a fair amount of levels (17), but they’re relatively homogenous. I really would have liked to see the level design take on a more experimental edge, with very strongly themed levels. It’s hard to push this too far. Even gimmicky is better than repetitive.
There’s plenty of head room left to take a play mechanic like this to completely embellish it: weapons, enemy boats, power-ups, submarines, you name it.
(Bloboats Game Screenshots)
It’s Free!
Still, Bloboats provides a great amount of fun for a great price: completely and absolutely free. It’s a great example of an unexplored physics mechanic, and there’s even a hidden Bloboats Invaders game to boot.
Download Bloboats Game (8.2 MB) [mirror]
Be sure to check out the other entries in Assembly ’06 Game Development Competition.
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My name is Matthew Wegner, and this site is dedicated to physics games.
on August 5th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
I tried it, and it wasn’t really that fun. It is really hard to jump out of the water without hopping in and out the whole level
on August 5th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
Whomever made this game has a very sick sense of humor.
on August 6th, 2006 at 7:37 am
Lol, Thanks matthew for this fun, but painfully random game ;-)
on August 6th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
The only level that I can’t get past is the Tentacle Base level. It’s so hard! Any tips?
on August 7th, 2006 at 11:08 am
Sounds like it’s really good music at least! :D
on August 7th, 2006 at 12:21 pm
Does anyone else find it REALLY hard to get past those monsters? Because of those i can’t continue playing.
on August 7th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
LOl I love the music, it makes me laugh
on August 11th, 2006 at 10:29 am
Yesh I love the music! The game isint that hard! What this game needs is a level editor!
on August 16th, 2006 at 12:52 am
LOL the music has driven me sea-mad
on August 18th, 2006 at 12:38 am
Why did you remove the TG motocross 2 review???
on August 18th, 2006 at 9:20 am
Whoops, sorry about the TG Motocross 2 review vanishing. I accidently set it to private in WordPress on one of my edits (I did that to an interview for a *long* time and never noticed, too).
on November 20th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
I’m stuck on the level with those big rocks falling down from the sky, they keep on smashing me, and even if they miss, the inavoidable squid-monster wipes me off the face of the Earth, Help???
I LOVE this game, it is well designed, and VERY addicting.
on November 23rd, 2006 at 8:39 pm
oh, wait I did a few levels before it, and now…