Bloop Reloaded – Review
A while back, we had the chance to review Bloop, an extremely difficult physics puzzling game. Now, the second installment has released: Bloop Reloaded! Bloop reloaded follows the same principle as the previous game, guide liquids to their corresponding vials. But this time, a couple of big changes have been added into the equation!
Story
You are a shopkeeper in an unnamed fantasy universe and you’ve ran out of potions, which is a pretty big deal since you only sell potions. Now, you have to be creative and mix your own potions so you don’t go broke!
This is pretty much all of the story Bloop Reloaded gives you. It’s not a big or wide story at all, it’s all very basic. You’d expect nothing more from an indie puzzle game, but in the first game it at least tried to give you some story at all.
Graphics
When comparing Bloop Reloaded to Bloop, it definitely improved a lot graphics wise. The backgrounds are much more lively with very vibrant colors and it makes the game much less boring to look at than the previous one. As with the previous game, the main components of the levels are built with black lines, but Bloop Reloaded adds a couple of props and more artwork in the levels, which is always nice. Something else that is pretty minor but also looks really cool is level swapping. Level swapping makes blobs of colors appear on your screen, almost like if you threw buckets of paint onto a canvas.
Sound
The sound in Bloop Reloaded isn’t the greatest and some music is even re-used from the first game, but it’s not that big of a deal since there’s a couple of new tracks in the mix as well. The music itself is very peaceful and fits well with a casual puzzle game like this one.
Sound effects have had some improvements as well. In the first game, fluids didn’t sound like fluids at all and they were very loud and annoying. Now, they’ve had a big improvement and actually sound like fluids when they’re coming out of the faucets or bouncing against the wall.
Gameplay
Gameplay is of course the most important part of a puzzle game, and Bloop Reloaded has also improved here compared to its father. But let’s discuss the basics first for people who haven’t played it before!
The levels consist of faucets, vials and obstacles in between them. You have to direct the fluids that come out of the faucets and put them into their respective vial. However, sometimes you’ll have to combine multiple fluids to get one that matches the vial that it needs to go into. In order to direct the fluids you can draw platforms and gravity does the rest!
In order to help you direct the fluids, the game gives you a pretty neat trick. You can hold your right mouse button and then fluids will become attracted to your cursor. You can only do this for a limited amount of time though so take care! In order to replenish your energy, you can click the flying green balls that appear across the level.
If all of this doesn’t impress you, don’t worry, the game has a lot more up its sleeve! The first couple of levels will be fairly simple, but soon you’ll have saw blades that break your platforms, gravity fields that direct the fluids upward, portals that teleport the fluids, pull and push cubes and more! Sometimes you’ll also have locked faucets and a little box in the level, you then have to direct the box with your fluid to some … green thing and then it will start spinning. Once this thing starts spinning, you’ll unlock the faucet and fluids will flow!
In total there are 27 levels. Once you’ve completed them all you can try to make your own challenging levels in the level editor! The level editor has had a major overhaul and is much easier to use compared to the one in Bloop. Hopefully there will also be a feature implemented soon so you can upload your custom made levels to the Steam workshop, making it more of a community game and adding loads of levels!
Conclusion
Bloop Reloaded is a major improvement over the first game. It has easier levels (this is a good point really, you’ll agree if you’ve played Bloop) that make the game more fun for everybody, it has a good level editor, new mechanics, better graphics and the list goes on. The only thing that would make the game perfect is the ability to upload custom made levels into the Steam workshop. Other than that, this is a game every puzzle fan should play!
Bloop Reloaded - Review,
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