Game Reviews

Blot

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iOS
| Blot
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Blot
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iOS
| Blot

The open nature of iOS development means you get to see a wide variety of art styles on the App Store, and Blot has a wonderfully unique look that has to rank as one of our favourites.

Its level backgrounds are made up of pencil drawings on the lined paper of a school exercise book - the kind of sketches produced by an artistic pupil possessed of too much imagination to resort to the phallic doodles of his or her peers.

So instead of authentically shaded ejaculate you’ve got more innocent fare like the solar system, love hearts, tanks, monsters, and walruses riding unicycles. Ink-credible graphics

It’s a good job Blot has such an original aesthetic, because playing it is a rather familiar experience. Hold your finger on the screen and your steadily accelerating inkblot avatar will climb; let go and it descends towards the bottom of the page.

Yes, read between the margins and you’ve got Halfbrick’s Jetpack Joyride with an arty makeover. It even shoots out of the blocks in a similar manner, with a single touch from the start screen setting things in motion.

Again, the objective is simply to travel as far as you can, the distance measured in millimetres as you travel across the delightful hand-crafted illustrations. Drawn to death

Pencils and thumbtacks are your obstacles here, the former coming in jabbing and spinning varieties as well as in static form.

Collide with them and you’ll splat across the page, a classroom audience greeting your performance with a level of enthusiasm proportionate to the grade you’ve achieved.

Along the way you’ll come across smaller blots, which swell your size - on the one hand this makes collecting coins easier, though naturally you’re at greater risk of crashing. Pigment of your imagination

Pick up five of these mini-blots and you’ll become invincible for a short time, while eating up the pages at a much faster pace.

You’ll occasionally come across paint trails that imbue your blot with a temporary ability should you run through them. Blue paint has a magnetic effect, with coins drawn towards you, while green gives you a bit of extra zip and orange slows you down.

You can spend the coins you’ve earned on a variety of power-ups, though only one of these can be equipped per run. The Pip-Blot 2000 alerts you whenever a smaller blot is nearby, while a magnetic brick automatically hoovers up coins while you’re boosting. The Crayola is a lie You can also purchase a portal, which is a one-use way of getting out of trouble. Splat against a hazard and you’ll be given the opportunity to teleport to a safe place, allowing you to continue your run.

It’s more sluggish than its inspiration - the blot feels weightier than Barry Steakfries, though to compensate, the game gives you more time to react to incoming objects. Splat's your lot

But the main issue is that it doesn’t have the objective-based structure that made Jetpack Joyride so compulsive. With nothing but distance to aim for, Blot runs out of steam much sooner.

Achievements and unlockable outfits stave off the end for a while, but ultimately Majestic Software’s game doesn’t have much more than its brilliant art style to recommend it.

Blot will probably be the best of Jetpack Joyride’s imitators, though ultimately - and perhaps unsurprisingly - it can’t quite keep pace with the real thing.

Blot

A lovely art style complements solid if derivative gameplay - worth a look if you're after the new Jetpack Joyride
Score
Chris Schilling
Chris Schilling
Chris has been gaming since the age of five, though you wouldn't think it to see him play. Thankfully, his knowledge of the medium is as impressive as his unerring ability to fail at Angry Birds.