Adventure Gamers - Forums

Rob Blanc - Better Days of a Defender of the Universe

This is the first AGS game I ever played and is one of the earliest completed games that got any notice outside the community back in 2001.

I think that quite a lot of people who hate AGS games (and it isn’t an entirely uncommon view) hate them because this sort of game is what pops into their minds when they think about AGS. It’s very short and if it looks like it was made using MS Paint by a teenager in his bedroom, then that is basically because it was.

This game is the first in a series of 3 by the now internet-famous Ben “Yahtzee” Crowshaw.  I can completely understand why some people (perhaps most people) will take one look at a screenshot or two and decide that this isn’t for them but for me, simple though it is, it is lots of fun and a reminder of a time when suddenly it was possible to make your own adventure game without having to properly learn to code!

You play Rob Blanc, a chip shop worker from England who is somehow selected to become the defender of the universe. Your first task, to save an alien spacecraft which is under attack from… well, you’ll see!

The midi soundtrack is almost as garish as the eye burning colour scheme, the puzzles are simple, the premise is fun and the writing is comedic and not too shabby at all. Things did improve in the next two games in the series, becoming longer and more involved and the “trilogy” is certainly an amusing diversion for an afternoon.

To my mind it is a little piece of AGS history, capturing a moment in time of a young community of would be game developers with a developing DOS based engine with all the enthusiasm and experimentation that involves.

So anyway, have you played Rob Blanc? Does the very sight of it together with my rose-tinted nonsense reinforce your hatred for AGS? Or is it simply something that doesn’t interest you at all?!

Hmmm, not sure about Windows 10, you might do best using Dosbox or similar although I haven’t actually tried that. Otherwise compatibility settings might do it.

wilco - 29 October 2015 07:10 PM

...Why Whigfield? Whyyy!

That’s the bit that makes me laugh the most!

Glad Dosbox worked, it’s kind of the DW40 for old games!