App Army Assemble: Blon - Is this cutesy auto-runner a must-play addition to the genre?

Blon is a cutesy pixel art auto-runner where you play as a little blob who embarks on an adventure to put a stop to his evil brother's plans. The game takes players through several biomes, each of which is guarded by a tricky boss. We recently handed the game over to our App Army to see what they thought of it.

Here's what they said:

Raul Figueiredo

Blon is a rogue-lite auto-runner with a few cool features: there's a respectable variety of biomes to go through and upgrades to accumulate - the currency is easy to come by, which speeds up progress.

On the other hand, its gameplay is very simple and doesn't get much more complex apart from one or two biome-specific gimmicks. Boss fights start out easy and fair, but they eventually get more dangerous and obscure in terms of weaknesses (there was a particularly annoying crab that killed me many times without me even realizing what I was doing wrong).

Overall, it's an enjoyable game that respects your time and lets you constantly discover new areas. However, the gameplay may be a bit too simple for some and boss battles can become frustrating a bit too quickly.

Mark Abukoff

This is a pretty simple rogue-lite auto-runner that has simple controls and features. It took me a while to notice the counter on the top of the screen, and that was why I was failing the first run more than I liked. After that, you figure out what slows you down. What helps you. And eventually, you can upgrade to help yourself. It’s well made and a cute game that I think many will enjoy. As for myself, I’m not a huge fan of autorunners, with rare exceptions and the ultra-cute thing doesn’t really appeal to me. Plus the frustration level was a little high for me especially early in a game (could be that I’m just not as good at these as I should be). But if you like all that and you’re looking for another solid entry, you’ll probably be happy with this.

Jason Rosner

Blon is a platformer best described as a side-scroller auto-runner done with pixel graphics. I really liked Blon the more I played it. It started off a bit slow for me, but once I had done multiple runs of individual levels I started to gain different talents, unlocked new characters, and discovered some cool weapons and armour. Talents give you abilities such as increasing your strength. Characters have varied attributes that go well with different play styles. There’s also a nice selection of varied worlds with some neat boss fights. The difficulty feels just right too and you can switch it up if needed. Blon starts off rather simple, but you’ll soon discover its depth.

Jim Linford

Blon starts off sedate and whimsical but after a few goes it reveals itself to be an auto-runner with rogue-lite elements (upgrades, character unlocks etc) gameplay is simple tap left screen to jump and right to fire (seems to be only for bosses) you run through a level and collect leaves (currency) avoid enemies and hazards then fight a boss. When you die you get to spend the money upgrading Blon. (Rince and repeat) There is nothing wrong with this game it took me a while to get into it. But I’m not sure how much of my attention this game will grab. It does everything well but not well enough for me. Sorry to sound negative. Maybe I haven’t got fair enough. I will keep trying

Robert Maines

Blon is a side scroller auto-runner with an old school mechanic that you can only decide when to jump, you have no control of Blon once the blob is in the air. As you play, various hazards need to be avoided as they slow you down when hit, slow down too much or fall down a hole and it’s game over.
The graphics are retro and the sound is very cheerful sounding. The simple play mechanic is deepened by temporary upgrades you can pick up in a level and permanent upgrades via an upgrade path. Fun game.

Isaiah Stuart

Blon is an okay game. The controls work fine. The gameplay is fine. The art style is fine. The soundtrack is fine. I just didn't find really anything about it to set it apart from other similar mobile platformers, except possibly its pervasive ordinariness. In addition, the cutesy art style and the automatic movement quickly got on my nerves. There isn't anything particularly wrong with this game, but it doesn't do anything special. It really feels like a free to play game that costs money. I don't hate it, but I certainly don't think it's worth the asking price.

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