Bloop – Review
Die hard puzzle fans who like a challenge can cheer once more! Bloop has arrived on Steam and other digital download stores. Bloop is a physics-based liquid puzzle game by 2SD and while at first it looks like a fun and basic game quickly turns into a nightmare for some people. Luckily, some solutions can be found online!
Story
While most indie puzzle games don’t really have a story, 2SD did their best to put at least a little story into Bloop. You’re a scientist working on an experiment to give people free unlimited power, but when you finally try to realize your theory, something goes wrong. Your experiment has created Bloop, some sort of creature made by your chemistry. Bloop is pretty hungry so he wants you to feed him Bloopies, which is pretty much what this game is, feeding Bloop!
Graphics
The graphics in Bloop are pretty basic and not jaw-dropping in any way, but they do the trick. The level is usually built with simple black lines which guide the colored Bloopies around to their respective vials. What is pretty cool though is the background, which can be specific by level or you can set it to random. It looks very peaceful and helps with the casual and basic (well, the first few levels are) design of the game. Another thing that looked very different but cool are the cutscenes. While they aren’t amazing cutscenes like you can expect from big titles, it does have a pretty cool art style and also goes well with the rest of the game.
Sound
Like the graphics, the music isn’t anything special. Some might even argue that it’s annoying and boring, sometimes you’ll even feel that you’re listening to elevator music. But while it’s sometimes boring, it does make the game pretty peaceful, just what you want from a puzzle game like this one.
Another aspect are the sound effects, which could be a lot better. Since you’re working with fluids, you’d expect them to make fluid-like sounds, but this isn’t really the case. When the fluids collide with a wall you’ve placed, there’s no sound effect at all. Also, when starting and finishing the levels, the sound effects aren’t really all that good either. When you start the level and the fluids come out of the sink, you’re greeted by a rather annoying and loud sound, what seems to be a splash on steroids, and the sound of filling vials isn’t really that great as well.
Gameplay
At first, the game is very basic and easy to learn. You have faucets that send out some Bloopies when you start the level and you have to draw platforms in order to get them to vials. But what at first seemed like an easy game turns into an extremely hard game very quickly.
So the levels consist of faucets, vials and platforms, pretty basic stuff at first. Drawing platforms is as simple as dragging your mouse and to remove them you can right click them or press left control to delete your most recent platform. Some levels also give you a limited platform length and platform count, which can be found on the bottom of the screen. What’s also to be found on the bottom of the screen is a little power bar, which you will get after a few levels. This power can be used by holding right click and will serve as a magnet for Bloopies, allowing you to move them short distances. While the power can’t be used for a long period of time, it will recharge fairly quickly.
The first couple of levels are meant to get you familiar with the mechanics and ease you into them. You’ll have a pretty good tutorial that explains the game step by step as you move from level to level. At first, you’ll only have one faucet and one vial to consider, but as you get further, you’ll find yourself with 2+ faucets with the vials in the completely other direction.
Once you get to about level 7, you’ll notice that the game went full serious-mode. From here on out, the game suddenly gets a lot harder and introduces a lot more mechanics than you’re used to. Some mechanics include elevators, moving platforms, anti-gravitation blocks, black holes, portals and more. Starting here, the levels are pretty much impossible to do within 10 minutes for people who aren’t great at puzzle games (like me). The game features about 42 levels, which might not seem a lot, but it will take you A LOT of time to complete all of them.
For people who make it through all of the 42 levels (kudos to you!), there’s a level editor where you can let your creative genius do whatever it wants!
Conclusion
Bloop is a pretty good puzzle game which might seem basic at first glance, but quickly becomes accessible to only die-hard puzzle fans who don’t mind spending a lot of time on a single level. It features a lot of content for a low price and has nice physics and a big challenge, however, it’s kind of annoying that you can’t skip levels at all if you’re stuck on one.
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