Ooblets first crossed my radar when it was announced in 2017. At the time, the husband-and-wife duo that forms Glumberland planned to release the game in 2018 under Double Fine. Double Fine was eventually acquired by Microsoft before the game was released. ended, however, leading Glumberland to strike a deal with Epic for the PC version. Finally, Ooblets saw the light of day thanks to a Game Preview launch.
As of September 1, Ooblets has hit 1.0 and has been officially released as a full game. As part of that proper launch, players on Xbox received an update with achievements, additional areas to explore, and the conclusion of the game’s story. However, that official launch also came with a much higher price tag than the game had in Game Preview. Which leads to the question of whether this card-fighting, slice-of-life, farming and management simulator has enough cute creatures to collect to match that price tag.
Ooblets: What You Like?
When describing a video game with a disjointed collection of genres, it’s reasonable to assume that the game would feel disjointed and directionless. Ooblets somehow manages to try all of its genres while still feeling like they’re cohesive elements of one game that complement each other. Players create their character, get a little backstory on how they got to Badgetown, then in a move similar to other farming simulator games and real-life genres (namely Stardew Valley), get a cottage with a plot of land that needs urgent care. need.
The citizens of Badgetown are followed by unusual little creatures known as ooblets, and the player himself can interact with the wild ooblets that run amok in the town. The problem is that these wild ooblets need certain items or foods to get their attention – although you can pet them at any time for free. If the player has the necessary items in his inventory, they can challenge the ooblets to a dance battle. This is where card fights come into the equation.
The cards available during the dance battle depend on the type of ooblets that make up the team. Each ooblet variant has different signature cards at their disposal, and more are unlocked as the ooblet is leveled through dance battles. Dance-offs will contain a certain number of points needed for victory, and the two teams will compete against each other by choosing cards to earn points, while also hindering the opposing team with bewilderment, excitement and trepidation. The first team to reach the point goal wins. If the player’s team is the winner, they can choose to receive a seed from the opposing team’s leading ooblet. Growing that seed adds the ooblet to the player’s farm, and the cycle of farming to craft items that can entice ooblets into dance fights so you can collect more ooblets comes full circle.
It’s not all treabies and dance fights, though, as Badgetown is a vibrant city filled with curious characters that players can interact with. Residents of the city will occasionally have missions for the player to complete, such as finding missing ooblets or bringing specific items. By completing these quests and simply chatting with the residents, you will build friendships within the community and unlock badges and stickers for the player. Unlike similar games in the salutary community hero genre, Ooblets forgoes having any sort of romance or wedding goals. Your character’s focus is primarily on reconnecting the city, whose inhabitants risk being evicted by the Ooblet High Council, with the Oobnet and saving everyone’s home.
Ooblets: What You Don’t Like?
Nowadays, players expect bugs with the launch of a new game. Unfortunately, a game that has spent a long time in Game Preview and has had a constant stream of feedback from avid players probably shouldn’t be too broken once it hits 1.0. Ooblets unfortunately has a few problems to overcome despite its years of development. On the one hand, it feels a bit unfair to keep Ooblets’ issues over launch. It is a product developed by a small studio composed of a husband-and-wife duo that is as ambitious as it is charming. Looking back at original gifs and videos of where Ooblets started out, it’s striking to see the differences compared to the final launch status. However, there are important features of the game that urgently need attention and patches.
The most problematic issue is the player-controlled shop, which randomly traps the player inside. The current fix for this issue involves the player crashing the game to the Xbox dashboard, restarting the game, and starting a new save file. From there you create a new character, watch the opening sequence again and go to the dashboard for the second time. After that, the player should be able to reload its original save file and exit the store. The Ooblets disagreement goes as far as recommending players not to re-enter the shop as the outage is more likely to persist once it occurs. Glitches and bugs are a fact of gaming, but it’s disappointing that the fix to a launch issue is to advise players not to use an entire segment of the game until a patch is available.
Fortunately, the shop isn’t all there is to do in Ooblets, and there’s enough farming and exploration to keep the player busy otherwise. It’s worth noting, however, that the various areas players can visit outside of Badgetown are much smaller than the original area. Remote areas that can be reached by hot air balloon, such as Nullwhere and Mamoonia, add to the story, but the locations themselves are surprisingly linear and small. Port Forward, a carnival-themed boardwalk with a variety of arcade games added during Early Access, offers the biggest change to Ooblets’ gameplay. Re-visiting most remote areas feels unnecessary unless you’re specifically trying to catch all the available ooblets.
Ooblets: Should you buy it?
Despite its mishmash of genres, Ooblets really focuses on one specific player niche – the sociable collectors. The game’s overarching plot is one we’ve seen and heard many times before, but the world itself and the creatures that inhabit it are what you’re visiting Badgetown for anyway. The charming aesthetic with its vibrant colors and quirky residents is more than enough reason to visit Badgetown on your own. The dance battle soundtrack will have even the most stoic gamer moving to the beats as he laughs at the absurdity of this delightful world Glumberland has created.
Even with the struggle caused by bugs and glitches, I couldn’t help but feel that completing my final ooblet statue in City Hall was bittersweet. Ooblets was one of my most anticipated releases for 2022 and even made my list of Summer Games Fest hidden gems. While the game certainly has its flaws, it was still a showcase of the creative potential that even the tiniest indie studios can offer gaming.
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