De Blob

Our hero, ladies and gentlemen. Don't worry, you'll all enjoy yourselves!

De Blob is a platformer/puzzle game developed by Blue Tongue for the Wii in 2008. It originally started out as a project by a couple of students in Utrecht, the Netherlands, which explains the name of the game and the main antagonist corporation.

The premise of the game is that you start out as a clear ball of water, which has to seek out enemies called Paintbots to change colors between red, blue or yellow, which can also be combined to make new colors. Afterwards, all you have to do is merely touch the item you want to paint for the entire surface to be your current color. As you destroy more Paintbots, you continue to grow in size to a max of 100 "paint points" which are used to paint buildings or destroy enemies. Also, while you are free to paint, there are several missions you have to do before you can proceed to the next area.

Initially a lively and colorful city populated by its equally colorful and diverse citizens, the Raydians, Chroma City is suddenly invaded by the INKT Corporation. A corporate military dictatorship, INKT is led by the villainous Comrade Black and dedicated to the eradication of color through its "War on Color". Chroma City quickly falls to the invading army of Inkies and color draining Leechbots, leaving its landscape barren, its flora withered and its fauna in hiding. The citizens are rounded up and turned into Graydians by encasing them in homogeneous gray prison suits with their only distinguishing feature a bar code on the back of each shell. When the last remaining pocket of resistance, the Color Underground (The Professor, Arty, Biff and Zip), are cornered by INKT forces, de Blob appears, rescuing them and embarking on a Color Revolution.

A sequel De Blob 2 was released late February 2011. Comrade Black is trying to do drain all the color from Prisma City, and Blob, his new robotic sidekick Pinky, and the Color Underground have to stop him again. Unlike last time when INKT had completely taken over, and the Underground had to take everything back, in this one, the heroes are more on the offensive, chasing Black down as he keeps coming up with new schemes, though he has still taken over a lot of Prisma City when Blob gets there.

Not to be confused with The Blob.

Tropes used in De Blob include:

• 100% Completion: Which unlocks some movies and concept art.
• Amazing Technicolor Population
• The Anime of the Game: Coming soon to Syfy. Yes, really.
• Arc Words: In the sequel, a Blanc rambles a bit about "Grey Day is coming" in Prisma City's downtown. You then don't hear about it and probably forget until the last I.N.K.T. transmission before the last level says "All parties are cancelled. Tomorrow is Grey Day."
• Art Attacker: You take over the occupying forces by coloring the world.
• Badass Adorable: The heroes.
  • Pinky destroys a space laser entirely in one shot, and destroys a black hole.
• Battle Trophy: In the sequel, after Comrade Black captures the Color Revolution, he takes the Prof's Super Wheelchair and keeps it for the rest of the game.
• Bilingual Bonus: I.N.K.T means ink in Dutch.
  • The name of the city qualifies as well. Chroma means colour in Greek.
  • And now in the sequel, we have the Blancs. "Blanc" means "white" in French, though the characters appear to pronounce it as "blank" (which in itself is a Meaningful Name).
• Black and White Morality: Played with. Black, white and grey are all evil, and any colour is good.
• Blob Monster: The protagonist of the game.
  • He had an entirely different, much blobbier design in the obscure PC tech demo that started the franchise.
• Boss Subtitles
• Bring My Red Pants: Happens to Blob in the ending of De Blob 2, when he notices the black hole. And he doesn't even wear clothes.
• Captain Obvious: Pinky.

(final boss intro cutscene plays)
(big "Boss: Comrade Black" sign appears on the screen)
Pinky: It's Comrade Black! Get him!

• Church of Tropology: Church Of Inktology and the Blancs in the sequel.
• Concept Art Gallery: One that unlocks as you play different missions, which in turn are unlocked when you get silver or gold medals.
• Cool Airship: The blimp.
• Culture Police: The I.N.K.T. Corporation.
• Cyclops: Inkies.
• Design Student's Orgasm: This game was literally made by a bunch of art school students.
• Determined Expression: At the end of the sequel, the normally cheerful and carefree Blob gets quite serious after Comrade Black uses a giant hypno-disc to hypnotise the planet. He gives Comrade Black's surveillance camera a look which very clearly says, "I am coming for you, and you will pay for this."
• Everything's Better with Rainbows
• Fertile... um... "legs?" "crotch?" ...I don't know.: Blob can restore plants and trees to their former blossom on top of being able to paint buildings.
• Five-Man Band: As follows:
  • The Hero: Blob (obviously).
  • The Lancer: Arty, as she hands out most of the missions, which generally involve colouring buildings correctly.
  • The Smart Guy: Prof, who basically deals with the technical stuff and converting landmarks.
  • The Big Guy: Bif, whose job is to knock out Inkies.
  • The Chick: Zip, since his job is to get you places as quickly as possible, and not much else.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: Said by Prof at one point: "Why do such tiny dictators insist on making enormous statues of themselves?" Remember that this game is rated E.
  • In all seriousness, Comrade Black is small in the conventional sense.
  • Also, in the sequel, one mission prompts you to send the corrupt dean of the university a message by "painting his house brown".
  • In the sequel, a Fake News headline about a forthcoming political debate ends with "...versus Lemon Party candidate".
  • There is a couple in the sequel who are arguing and then throw a hat to the camera as they kiss...
• Goofy Print Underwear: Heavily parodied in the sequel's final cutscene when it shows that Comrade Black wears several kinds of silly underwear.
• Grimy Water: Ink serves this purpose in the game.
• Groin Attack: An Inky on a jetbike receives one from a billboard in the first game.
  • Also, it's presumed to have happened to Comrade Black when the Prof's stolen pants engine spills coffee on him while pressing buttons randomly to find something to kill Blob and Pinky.
• Harmful to Touch: Ink.
  • In the first game, having ink on you would drain you of color points and eventually kill you when you ran out. In the second game, being in contact with pools of ink drains you while being covered in ink just prevents you from picking up other colors until you wash it off.
• Herr Doktor: The Inky scientists all speak with German accents.
• Hypno Ray: The hypno-discs used by the Shepherds in the sequel (as well as the giant sized one Comrade Black uses).
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: The Inkies aren't really sympathetic, but they're very ineffectual.
• Instant Awesome, Just Add Mecha
• La Résistance: The main characters are the Colour Underground.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: With the simple case that polychromatic is superior to black and white.
• Lucky Seven: Seven colors, and in the sequel, seven levels remaining in the city after the INKT regime begins. Not a coincidence.
• Marathon Level: Every single level of this game, not counting bonus missions.
• Meaningless Lives: It is really, really hard to die in this game.
  • The sequel has far more Bottomless Pits and spike traps though. It also gives you a lot less lives to work with.
• The Men in Black: They're shown very briefly, as both concept art and when Comrade Black tries to gain better publicity. In the second game, two of them appear as Comerade Black's personal assistants.
  • They were also INKT's original design from the PC demo.
• Mickey Mousing: Most of Blob's actions come with a music cue:
  • Progressing through a level slowly ups the tone of the music, bringing it from a simple backbeat to a full-blown jazz tune.
  • Painting things gives off a short solo by an instrument linked to the color: most often saxophone red, trombone orange, trumpet yellow, electric piano green, bass blue, guitar purple and tuntable brown.
  • Shaking up a landmark adds maracas.
  • Completing a challenge produces a cool riff.
• Oh Crap: Comrade Black's reaction in the sequel when he realizes Blob is coming for him again.
• Painting the Fourth Wall: Of a sort: when the Inkies take control of the city, the names and descriptions of the remaining levels change, and the locked level symbols are replaced with Inkies.
• Pivotal Boss: In the first game, the final boss, which sits in an ink pool in the middle of a circular arena.
• Punny Name: Guggentraz Island, a combination of Alcatraz Island and any number of art galleries named Guggenheim, and the Last Resort, which was a resort... and the last hideout of La Résistance.
  • Don't forget Comrade Black.
• Puzzle Reset: A strange take on it. Your color meter and your color itself are reset to how they were before you start a mission, but nothing else is.
• Sadistic Choice: In the last level of the sequel, Comrade Black taunts you with the choice to save some doomed workers or stop his world domination scheme. There's actually enough time to do both.
• Scary Dogmatic Aliens: Of the communist variety. Heck, the Big Bad is even named Comrade Black.
• Sequel Escalation: Stronger enemies, an upgrade system, and Super Mario Galaxy-esque gravity physics.
  • And TWO boss fights. And you can go inside landmarks and paint up the place.
• Shout-Out: Some concept art of inked up Blob gives him golden eyes, making him look like a certain 12-pound ball of tar.
  • One of the billboards you can find has the Newgrounds logo, except with an Inky tank to replace the regular one.
• Show Within a Show: The I.N.K.T. News Reports.
• Speaking Simlish: You can occasionally make out some words like the characters' names, but for the most part, it's this. Listen carefully in the sequel, and you'll notice that every line of Simlish (or rather, Raydian) is a unique recording and generally matches the text.
• The Stinger At the end of the first game, Comrade Black survives and lands on a deserted island, then a bunch of colorful creatures appear from the bushes and jump on to him, cuddling him and freaking him out in the process.
• Sugar Bowl: Chroma City, at least until I.N.K.T. takes over, at which point it's a Sugar Apocalypse.
• Super Soldiers: The specialized Inkies that are immune to all but one color. Some can even change which colour this is.
  • In the sequel, the Spikes, whose rocket launchers make it dangerous to jump anywhere nearby; being a platformer, this makes them important and somewhat painful to get rid of.
• Super Wheelchair: The Prof. Comrade Black steals it in the sequel.
• Terrain Sculpting: As part of a World-Healing Wave, the most powerful Transformation Engines can severely alter the nearby terrain to get Blob to the next area or just celebrate the completion of the level.
• Terrible Artist: One cutscene you get before entering Downtown has an Inky holding a drawing drawn by one.
• Those Wacky Nazis: I.N.K.T. seems about as close as you can get for an E-rated game.
• Timed Mission: Subverted. While all of the levels are on a time limit, you can simply do missions to get more time on the meter.
  • Don't forget rescuing groups of Raydians in suits to get a 60-second time pickup.
  • However, most of the missions within each level are timed, and there are only a finite number of time pick-ups, so it is possible to run out of time overall.
  • Also, the sequel stops the clock once the final landmark in a level is transformed.
• Toilet Humour: Blob deposits colour into Color Sinks by pressing his bottom into them and squeezing. Then... a flushing noise is heard.
• Variable Mix: You can choose the soundtrack you want to be played before each level.
  • Though in the second game, your choices are heavily limited.
• Villainous Breakdown: Comrade Black really starts freaking out towards the end of the games.
• World-Healing Wave
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Throughout the game, you will kill hundreds of Inkies. Doesn't matter, they're all evil.
• Xanatos Gambit: In the sequel, Comrade Black sets up a color energy distribution system so that if Blob manages to free the whole city, he'll have enough color energy to run a giant Space Laser and easily steal the color of Prisma City and Raydia as a whole, and hypnotize everyone.