And Monday Games returns. Sort of. This week’s installment is a bit shorter than normal, due to nature and its horrible, horrible pollen doing its level best to kill me. The game, Fantastic Blood boy!, also just appeared on Rock, Paper, Shotgun last Friday, which only adds to the hobbled nature of this post. As regular readers are probably aware, I try to wait at least two weeks before outright stealing from RPS. Blame it on the never-ending sinus troubles and burning eyes that have made up my weekend.

But enough about allergies, as much more of this talk will see me turning into Warren Ellis. Fantastic Blood Boy! is a late entry in The Independent Gaming Source’s most recent contest calling for people to create games to fit a randomly assembled name. I don’t know what won the contest, as that would require a level of investigation I’m not quite capable of at the moment, but it’s hard to imagine anything that could top Fantastic Blood Boy had it been entered before the deadline. And it’s not just the wonderful name – FBB manages to bring the sort of new idea to the table that feels so familiar and obvious when first encountered you’ll spend the next hour or so after playing trying to remember where you’ve seen it before.

Playing Fantastic Blood Boy is simple enough – the eponymous main character, controlled by you, is invulnerable. The crystal linked to you by a dotted white line is not. As the game progresses, more and more of the identical sockpuppet enemies will spawn and try to destroy the crystal. Touching the crystal sends it flying away to safety, while leaving it alone (and, of course, exposed) causes it to create platforms and weapons to help you destroy the sockpuppets and earn points. Befitting a high-score hunt of this type, the longer things go on, the more they hectic they get, with more enemies and more crystals to watch over filling the screen.

And that’s it, really. It’s yet another game about how long you can last before dying, but the tricks it manages along the way are (as far as I know) unique and remarkably innovative, reaching past the usual “new-idea-for-the-sake-of-having-one” to create an experience that stands apart. You can’t be hurt, therefore you don’t matter. All that’s important is the crystal, and who reaches it first. It’s a shame Fantastic Blood Boy! wasn’t finished in time for the contest, but really, I’m just happy it was finished at all.

Filed under: Monday Games