Bloboats

I'm not sure if I'm just really bad at Bloboats, or if it's really impossibly difficult. A quick glance around the internet reveals that a number of other people had serious difficulty with it, but there are a lot of lazy and/or incompetent people out there, so it's possible I'm just a member of that category.

This is another simple game - it's a side-scrolling platformer of sorts. You're the captain of a boat, and you have to get from the beginning of the level to the ship in need of rescue at the end of the level. You do this by accelerating, which causes your ship to want to flip up/backwards, so you have to 'steer' with the left and right keys to keep your ship moderately level.

There are obstacles (read: tentacle monsters!) and land-masses which must be jumped. The height of your jump is determined by how low you 'sank' in the water before rising out of it, which is hard to explain, easy to understand once you're doing it, but even harder to do effectively.

It's really hard to control the boat. And if you touch the tentacle monsters at all, you immediately explode into a gajillion pieces. For me, I found the controls simple to learn, but impossible to master, which made it less fun than the traditional 'simple to learn, but difficult to master' that most mechanics-based games strive for. I never really got past the 'trial-and-error' method of passing a level, where I just kept trying it until I lucked out as far as my position on a wave and managed to jump it right.

But the controls are consistent, and responsive, so it's possible I just suck at it. Graphically, it has a unique look. Sort of 'hi-res MS Paint', almost. It's child-like but attractive, and it performs well. It certainly doesn't look like a AAA retail title, but it's not supposed to.

Sound? Didn't work for me. Did some lookin' on the intarwebs and found other people with the same problem, but no solution. An amusingly nautical soundtrack would have made Bloboats more fun, but since I never really 'got it', I don't think it would have made it fun enough.

In all, if you're into odd physics-based boating games with tentacle monsters, I recommend trying it out. It's a relatively small download, and five minutes should be enough time for you to discover that you adore it, or can't stand it. I believe that most people will find it frustrating to play, and not a lot of fun, but I'm not sure enough of myself to give the game a 'don't bother'.