The Blob!

The Blob is a freeware game written by students of Game Design & Development at the Utrecht School of the Arts and students of Game & Media Technology at Computer Science at Utrecht University.

The concept is similar to the Katamari series. The player controls a single blob, part of a group of aliens, who crashed his ufo into the city of Utrecht in The Netherlands. The game is played on a single, large map with white buildings. Initially, the blob is transparent, but by rolling it into characters of different colours, colour can be absorbed and used to paint the buildings in town. Next to the primary colours, they can also be mixed to create green, brown, orange or purple. There are 3 objectives: to paint all the buildings in town, to colour 17 important landmarks such as churches, a library, a cinema, or the town hall, and finally there are 50 coins to collect, which unlocks a bonus. The landmarks all require a specific colour and often a certain blob size.

The blob's movement is entirely controlled by the mouse, with the left mouse button to jump and the right mouse button to view the level map through a top-down view. Bonus points are awarded for quick combos while painting different buildings. Structures can be painted over again, but no additional points are awarded. While navigating through streets, bridges, over ramps and railways, the blob grows with each absorbed character. To make it shrink, the blob needs to be moved into water, which also washes off the colour. This also needs to be used to get rid of the black colour, caused by the I.N.K. police who chase the blob with agents, vans and helicopters. While black, the blob cannot absorb new colours.