BLARP! Reviews

Don't let the simple graphics fool you, this game is awesome. As the room expands the sense of presence is there. Game is simple to understand and challenging to play, It is by far my favorite VR game in the under $5 price range.

Simple, cheap, but one of my favorite games I've played so far. HIGHLY recommend checking it out. Tons of fun, and very unique. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG2YBjUraF0

This is sort of like that game "Snake" that came with Windows 95, but the updated modern VR version with a twist! For $2.99, this is a great deal. A physics puzzler with a trippy aesthetic. I can dig it!

What can you say? Mindless game that mercilessly and repetitively exploits a single basic game play mechanic. But like a yoyo, or one of those wooden paddle toys that has a ball tied to it with an elastic string (ala Blazzing Saddles), you sort of do it over an over anyway, unable to identify where the fun is but unable to stop. Blarp is like that, a confusing activity that is strangely compelling. The price is quite right for what you get, and the developer knows it. BLARP! Sorry, I ate too much lunch.

Look, this is in my top 3 favourite VR games, so I'm gonna leave a much longer review later. But for now I just want my thumbs-up to count. So let me make this short: The reason [i]BLARP![/i] is so cool is that it's one of those games that can only exist in VR. There's no way to have this sort of gameplay in a flatscreen 3D game. You'd have to go all the way back to 2D to have even an approximation (something that would be sort of like Particle Mace.) In Blarp, you corral an ever-growing number of floating eyeballs, in an ever-growing room, twirling them around like a bolas, or a bunch of yo-yos. With the analog range of the Vive's trigger, you can pull them in to you with varying force, which you can also offset by swinging them around. Just make sure you don't let any of them actually touch your hand, or it's instant game over. Your other hand has an extendable shield to help you keep them in check (I never use it.) The aim is to swing and release them to hit randomly placed floating targets that level you up. You keep leveling up, adding an eyeball each time and seeing the room get bigger and bigger. As the swarm of eyeballs tethered to your hand grows and grows, it becomes easier to throw them in the general direction of the target and trust that one of them will hit it, but it also gets more difficult to maneuver them around without one of them touching your hand. Add to this the fact that some of the eyeballs are smaller and move much faster (either the new ones, or the old ones, I'm not sure.) There are a number of indicators to help you play. The eyeballs are linked to your hand by smart tethers that let you know how far each ball is just by looking at the dashes on the tether. The dashes also dynamically change as you exert a pull with the trigger. It's very intuitive and makes it easy to manage a huge number of eyeballs without having to look at all of them - just look at your hand and the opacity and length of the tether dashes. There are also audio cues to help you, for instance, locate the floating targets without hassle. Let's talk about the visuals and audio. Cabbibo, the developer, is fond of psychedelic shaders and abstract dynamically generated music. The screenshots in the store page give you an idea of how trippy the game looks. It's rather ugly in screenshots, but in motion you see how gorgeous it is: there are layers and layers of hidden fields, that you peek at when looking the wakes behind the eyeballs, or the mat under your feet, or your controllers. The walls of the room ripple and flex satisfyingly when you smack the eyeballs into them. The eyes themselves each emit a sound sample, growing into a cacophony that's pleasing yet overpowering. This is pure VR arcade fun. The sense of progression is palpable, the gameplay simple but deep and compelling. I would improve a few things. Have more colour coordination rather than the vomity scheme, while maintaining the effects. Left handed mode. A checkpoint or extra life every few 5 or 10 levels. Okay, this review ended up much longer than I planned. I love this game so much. It's ridiculously low priced, and it's such a unique and intuitive experience. Please give it a try.

Perhaps I'm missing some core game mechanic here, but I don't quite see the epic appeal of BLARP! Or, at least, I'm at a loss to explain why so many other reviewers thought it was the cat's pyjamas. As far as I can tell, there are only two controls (i.e. the right trigger attracts blarps to the wand, left trigger generates a shield), two game mechanics (elastic attraction and shield-based deflection), and one goal (get a blarp to strike the numbered ball). Sure, the spacey mood music is nice and mellow and the rainbow-coloured visuals sufficiently trippy, but is this really the sort of experience I'd want to: 1, spend lots of time in; or 2, show off to friends, family, and curious passers-by to demonstrate the potential of VR? That would be a firm "no" on both counts.

If you have a vive, just stop reading this and buy this game. I'm struggling to find a con, but I guess it does tend to wrap up your cord. I also imagine that without at least 2mx2m it would be hard to play, but maybe if you were a skilled rope wranglin' cowboy, you could make do. BLARP out man!

Hands down one of the most magical experiences I've had on the Vive. The feeling of swinging the balls around the room is simply amazing. The game requires a lot of patience in the later portions of a run, making it frustrating to lose to a simple mistake, and hard to come back to because of this. If the game had some sort of checkpoint system or "Start playing at level 15, 30, ..." system in place it would have a lot more replayability. Regardless, for under 5$, this game is a must buy.

This is like all of my 90s hologram stickers, come to life. Despite buying over $100 worth of VR titles over the weekend to play on my VIVE, the one I keep thinking about the most is Blarp. The sound design is fantastic, and the graphics are so trippy yet on point with a sense that I'm actually in the mentioned hologram space. If you own a VIVE, own this game. Now.

Does it break new ground? Does it innovate and excite? No on both counts. But as a physics exercise, Blarp is fantastic at demonstrating what VR, and more importantly motion controlled VR, can do. The game is basic, almost painfully so. A psychadelic eyeball called a "Blarp" is floating around in a box with you. You can 'attract' it by pulling the trigger of the Vive Bagel Blaster associated with your right hand, and the Blarp will attempt to make sweet, sweet love to your remote. When you stop pulling the trigger, the Blarp continues on its last path and velocity, whether or not your remote is still there. Also of note is that Blarps can not turn on a dime -- more accurately, they can maybe turn on a manhole cover. What this means is that you bull-and-cape it into running into a target floating in the box with you. Upon hitting the target, another Blarp spawns, and now BOTH of those Blarps independently try to track down your Bagel Blaster when you pull the trigger. As you fling these helpless eyeballs into more and more targets, more of their compatriots spawn, attempting to destroy the interloper (your remote) in their midst. You keep going until you "get Blarped" (to use the in-game verbiage), i.e. a Blarp runs into your remote. There are no complex mechanics or systems to learn, just an intrinsic understanding of momentum and spatial awareness. Yet despite the simplicity, the game achieves its goal quite readily -- you realize that there is literally no way to play this game outside of VR. Without the depth perception, you won't be able to determine how far away the Blarps are from your remote, and by extent you'll end up striking out. Without motion controls, you wouldn't be able to 'swing' the Blarps from target to target (although I will readily admit that a PS Move could easily do just this, the only benefit of the Bagel Blasters of the Vive is being able to carefully sneak your way past a Blarp cloud as you gather them up for the next target.) As a game, aye, it's lacking. But as a $3 demonstrator of VR technology? Yeah, yeah, I think it does the job.