You're Invited to a Blob Party!

Come up with the same answer in order to merge with your fellow players and become one giant blob!

Published by WizKids, Blob Party is a cooperative party game for 4-8 players with a 15-minute playtime. It’s all about coming up with the same answers when given a category and a single word.

Gameplay

Blob Party is a cooperative game. Each player takes a bit of blob and a googly eye. Each player also takes a dry-erase board and marker. A category card is drawn. Categories are general such as TV, technology, or famous people. One player then draws three word cards and chooses one to play. Each player then secretly writes down an answer that they think fits that category and word combined. The only rule is the answer cannot contain any of the words from either the category or word card.

Once everyone has written an answer, they are all revealed. Any players that wrote down the same answer form a blob. To do this, you mush your pieces of blobs together and add your googly eyes to it. You then move on to the next round. A new category card is drawn, and a different player draws three word cards and chooses one. Players that have formed blobs will come up with one answer together as a team. (The rulebook suggests that all members of the blob write their own answers and then secretly compare them and select which one to reveal.) All answers from formed blobs and individual players who have not yet matched an answer are then revealed, forming bigger or more blobs as required.

You play up to seven rounds, and players win the game if they manage to all be part of one single blob before the end of the final round.

Review

There are other party games out there about trying to get or avoid having the same answers to questions, but Blob Party does manage to package the gameplay in a clever format with the growing blobs and googly eyes. It’s a fun moment when you manage to join a blob and can add your eye. It's oddly satisfying when the giant blob uniting all players is created.

It’s also a nice design to have the number of answers slowly shrink as more players join blobs, and it’s a satisfying game moment when you have two or three blob groups trying to match with one another. This is a solid escalation that helps the game progress nicely.

The cards often pose fun combinations and it’s interesting to see how different people make different connections, as well as trying to predict which connections people are likely to make. Likewise, once your blob grows, it’s interesting to work together to decide which answer your blob-mates think is the strongest.

This is a party game that works a little better at a higher player count, and it’s a bit of a strange choice to have the same number of rounds regardless of the number of players. Also, it’s possible to get a round that’s going to be really easy based on the players and cards, where the most obvious answer is, well, obvious. But this is going to be based largely on the players themselves and it’s also a game that’s very much about the act of playing it, rather than if you win or how quickly. It plays quite fast, which does feel unique for this type of party game, and the result is a game that you’re probably going to want to play several times back-to-back.

We enjoyed Blob Party. It might not be the most unique party game when you get down to the core of its mechanics, but the presentation is unusual, the speed fits it perfectly, and the player count range makes it flexible for different groups.

Pros: Components and presentation, speed of gameplay, works well at higher player counts

Cons: Some category and word combinations can be quite easy for certain groups, number of rounds is not scaled to player count

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.