Can someone explain to me what a blobber is?

[Lyralen]

I never heard the term, but it's catchy! What makes this game a blobber?

[maelfyn]

This has been on my mind quite a bit lately. I plan to do a Steam news article about it.

[Xero]

Blobber is a slang term that is used loosely to refer to first-person party-based RPGs in which the player controlled party is not represented as a distinct visual entity in the game world.

[YCGTW]

I've been told by people much older than me that "blobber" means that the party exists on one square as a...blob. Hahaha, I don't know I've always called these games dungeon crawlers, but now that isometric action rpgs get thrown into that genre it gets messy. Blobber is always used to find what I'm looking for.

[maelfyn]

I think Giant Bomb summed up blobbers[www.giantbomb.com] very nicely:

Blobber is a slang term that is used loosely to refer to first-person party-based RPGs in which the player controlled party is not represented as a distinct visual entity in the game world. As such, the game must stay in first-person view at all times within the game world (so that the camera can never be pointed at the party). Functionally, this means that the player's party always stays together and moves and acts as a single unit. No member of the party can be separated spacially from the rest, so, for instance, one party member cannot be commanded to walk down a hallway while the rest of the party waits behind. Thus, the party only has physical presence within the game world in the forms of walking around (i.e. having legs), swinging weapons or casting spells (i.e. having arms), and staying glued together as a solitary mass (i.e. being a blob). This artifice came to be called "a blob with arms and legs" and games that used it were in turn called "blobbers".

Blobbers originated as much out of technological limitation as intentional design in the early 1980s. Computers of that era were very limited in how much they could visually represent on screen, so maintaining a first-person view at all times was used to avoid the need to draw and animate the player's party characters on screen. As a result, scarce computer resources and screen real estate could be dedicated to showing just NPCs and the environment of the game world (which was still far from fully achievable). The necessity of using first-person view in blobbers was also desireable for closely imitating the experience of playing Dungeons & Dragons in which a Dungeon Master tells players about their perception of the game world in second person and the player issues their actions in first person. In early computer RPGs such as blobbers, D&D was nearly always the overwhelmingly dominant source of inspiration, so any method of better simulating the D&D experience was seen as a prime objective.

[maelfyn]

As far as I know, Nevergrind Online (NGO) is the first multiplayer blobber. Not only is it multiplayer, but it's online multiplayer. I've looked high and low to debunk myself, but I haven't been able to find one. Every blobber I've found is single-player and you control the entire party. Most of them are also turn-based whereas NGO features real-time combat in an online world with robust social features such as chat, trading, and guilds. I think dungeon crawl enthusiasts will be pleased with what NGO brings to the table.

[Trent]

Looking forward to it!

[Dainoka]

WE NEED PVPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

[Splashbang]

Originally posted by Chintanoka:

WE NEED PVPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

Nah, we don't.

[Grakor]

Originally posted by maelfyn:

As far as I know, Nevergrind Online (NGO) is the first multiplayer blobber. Not only is it multiplayer, but it's online multiplayer. I've looked high and low to debunk myself, but I haven't been able to find one. Every blobber I've found is single-player and you control the entire party. Most of them are also turn-based whereas NGO features real-time combat in an online world with robust social features such as chat, trading, and guilds. I think dungeon crawl enthusiasts will be pleased with what NGO brings to the table.

I think that the Demise games (Rise of Ku'tan and Ascension) are blobbers that can be multiplayer. Though those games are fairly obscure, so I can't blame you for not having heard of them: https://www.gamersgate.com/product/demise-ascension/

Edit: Saw another thread where this game was pointed out already, sorry about that!

[Limdul]

there was another first person multiplayer dungeon crawler from 1993
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/shadow-of-yserbius-2aw