Bulb Boy

The strongest side of the game, for me, is the illustration and creepy/funny atmosphere. What you can see in screenshots is exactly what you get in terms of graphics. Story is cute but very light. Gameplay is very easy and straight forward - usually you need to find the object, put it in inventory and than give it to some someone or use it on something. When I started playing it I enjoyed it a lot, made me smile a few times, but then I got stuck and all the positive impressions went away. If you don't want to get stuck I will explain what you should'n do, so SPOILERS! (not really spoilers, but just in any case) - There is a part when you leave the house and go into water. When you get ability to swim and a escape the swarm of water leeches you enter the next room with the big monster. In this room if you search the upper side of the level you can encounter snail. DON'T EAT THE SNAIL!. That's it. Just wait for someone to ask for the snail and then you can it. If you ate the snail you won't be able to advance the game, or do anything to fix it. I searched for the way to resolve my problem and I found the response from the developer and their only answer is to start the game from the beginning. There is no load/save option, only autosave and load last checkpoint. It's not big of a problem, because I played it for about an hour or less, but that is not excuse for publishing game with game-breaking bug. I would give it 4 stars (maybe even 5) but I detracted one star for the bug. Shame....

Most of Bulb Boy, I found passable, if not particularly interesting. It runs into the problem of trying to use monsters to generate a genuine sense of threat in a point and click adventure. A lot like with my feeling on the more traditional horror in a game like stasis, the monsters never really add much given the fact that as much as they need to vaguely threaten you, they can never really do much, since the game needs to give you the time to solve it's puzzles. Maybe I'm not the correct audience for the game, but it's creatures never really managed to hit a tone of being either particularly creepy or particularly funny. We... occasionally see them fart? And there's one that's a giant poop? If neither of these examples make you laugh, there's not much in the game you'll find particularly hilarious. The thing is, all this I can forgive and say that this was a solid three star game that wasn't to my particular tastes. And then the mild platforming and reflex events start. As simple as they are, the interface of pointing and clicking to make your character move across the screen renders even the simplest of these more an annoyance than anything that really adds to the game. The game's final boss, in particular, will simply have you mashing your mouse for a minute in perhaps the most dragged out qte outside of Deadly Premonitions. I least these blemishes mar an utterly unremarkable game rather than one that was worth playing, I guess.

For the first point and click I ever finished I have to say it's not a bad experience. (I'm an FPS person by nature.) I like that it has a happy ending despite it's weirdness. It's story wasn't the increasingly common misery. I liked it. If I never finish another point and click adventure game I'm glad I played this one. For what it is and it's visual style I give it a 5 star rating. Everything that is there works and works well. I suppose that if you HAD TO play a point and click in life by one sneaking in. (Which is what happened to me.) Let this one slip by. It's not long or tedious.

Art style is great (unless you are easily grossed out)! Puzzles are straightforward for the most part, I found the last boss a bit tedious. But, overall fun little adventure!