The Game-Maker Archive – Part 20: Blinky and a Small Kind of Fame

January 29, 2011

by Eric-Jon Rössel Tairne

Jeremy LaMar is perhaps best known under the handle SnigWich, for his Megazeux games such as Bernard the Bard – often ranked amongst the best games ever produced under Gregory Janson’s engine. More recently, under his new name Otto Germain, he has returned to his roots as a cartoonist. Before any of that, he was renowned for his RSD Game-Maker work – and he never even knew it.

At some point two of LaMar’s early Game-Maker games, The Return of Blinky and Blinky 3, made their way to a section of America Online known as AOL Kids. There, they gained a small yet fervent cult following. In the following years, a Blinky wiki and fanfics and video tributes would spring up around the Web. Even years after the AOL Kids area vanished, LaMar’s fans kept up the devotion. At least one poster to a DOS games forum claimed that the Blinky games inspired him to pursue game design.

When you consider the obscurity of most Game-Maker games, indeed of Game-Maker itself, this level of enthusiasm is remarkable. To be sure, LaMar’s games are amongst the most polished produced with RSD’s tools, both in terms of the design sensibility and in their mastery of the materials available to them. One does wonder, though, how much circumstance and exposure play in a game’s fortunes. One also wonders what other small communities might even now be obsessing over even less likely games, and to what extent those players might be inspired to greater things.

The Return of Blinky (1994)

The original Blinky, LaMar’s first Game-Maker project, is now lost to time and computer failure along with half a dozen other games. Its essence lives on, though, in The Return of Blinky. This first sequel, which LaMar classes as a near-remake, is heavily inspired by Link to the Past, with its exploration-based design and pseudo-3D cliffs.

Blinky, the pink dinosaur, sets out to save Funky Forest from the evil Schnookwad. He does this primarily by wandering through forests, caverns, and factories, tossing doughnuts at enemies, and bribing his cat (also named Doughnut) to clear a path.

LaMar got the basics down just fine – admirably, even. The presentation is clear and appealing, reminiscent of a late-era Sega 8-bit game. Controls are simple and very responsive. The actual design, from level to level, flows smoothly with few moments of outright confusion. Where the game excels, though, is in the flourishes – the conveyor belts, the amorphous spore clouds that the player can whittle away, but only so far.

Game-Maker’s biggest limitation and greatest potential is in its monsters, and here LaMar uses them about as well as PPP Team at their best. Feeding the cat a doughnut briefly focuses its attack pattern. Aside from the spore clouds, there are complex multi-segmented threats like Zelda-esque snakes and Mario-style firebars. Every four levels the player faces an enormous boss, often with long multi-segmented limbs and complex attack patterns.

As with Badman 2, even the ending credits are something special, with a monster roll against a miniature scene of victory.

The Return of Blinky is earnest, well-judged, and well-implemented. It is works well not just as a Game-Maker game or as a shareware game, but as a children’s game – amongst the hardest of games to get right. It does make sense that if any Game-Maker game were to develop a cult following, it would be this one.

Blinky 3 (1995)

The next sequel is a bit more convoluted. At some point, he said, LaMar stopped development and let the game sit on the shelf for a while. That makes sense, in that Blinky 3 is perhaps more ambitious than it is joyous. It’s still amongst the upper echelon of Game-Maker games, and an impressive work on several levels; it’s just that you can feel the work behind the design.

Unlike its predecessors, the third Blinky is a side-scroller. Rather like Sonic 3 (or indeed Badman 3), the game offers a choice of characters – Blinky, Doughnut, and a new character named Chum – each with unique abilities and a distinct path through the game. Furthermore, the levels are tightly wound together with several branching paths.

LaMar also hit on an interesting quirk, whereby for any given level neglecting to establish a character in Integrator causes the game to simply carry over the existing character. The knock-on effect is that once the player chooses a character, the game is free to direct that character into any level without need to establish a separate instance of the level for every possible character. It’s a simple trick, yet it greatly cuts down on the headache of advanced level design.

There are plenty of other neat little tricks, like LaMar’s solutions for melee attacks or using text files over static images to generate dialog – and it’s these tricks that stick in the mind. The game itself is respectable. Unlike The Return of Blinky it’s tougher than it needs to be, and sometimes more frustrating than it is rewarding. Still, full points for trying something new and then finishing the job. It may also be notable that Blinky 3 appears to be the more fondly remembered of the two games, and indeed for years after AOL took down its kids section it was LaMar’s only Game-Maker game to remain in circulation. It’s only within the last year that someone found a backup of The Return of Blinky and began to redistribute it, to relatively muted fanfare. The third Blinky is what everyone seems to remember.

Before he lost all of his data LaMar also completed some small work on a fourth Blinky, which was to have followed in the model of Blinky 3, except with improved controls.

If you enjoy the two surviving Blinky games, you might also check out SnigWich’s Megazeux portfolio. After a long gestation Germain is also considering a return to game design, and has a few plans on the table. That, however, is a topic for another article.

You can download the two surviving Blinky games here.