Playing
Press start, pick a game, make a Blobbu (or scan or type the code from your card), then battle Today's House Champion or a friend. Print your card or sticker at the end. The machine forgets your game when you're done.
Mini games
Blobbu Blaster: your Blobbu flies at the bottom; pop the Grumblobs and catch the snacks they drop. Catch snacks in a row for ×2 and ×3. Three hearts; every fifth wave brings a Big Grumblo. Power-ups sometimes fall from popped Grumblobs (a Big Grumblo always drops one); fly into one to take it: Spread (three shots at once, 15 s), Rapid (faster fire, 15 s), Magnet (snacks come to you, 15 s), Shield (takes one hit for you) and, rarely, a Heart (one back, never more than three). Spread and Rapid replace each other. Today's Run has the same waves for everyone all day (UTC). Your stats flavour how it feels, a little, never how strong you are.
Tournament (when the cabinet offers it): pick Tournament on the player count, then 3 to 8 players. Each player gets a Blobbu in turn; then the bracket: press Fight for each match (ordinary battles, so the same pair always ends the same way; the first players in get byes when the numbers aren't even) until one champion is left. Print the champion's winner sticker, and take every Blobbu home from the list of links.
Two players at once: on a cabinet set up with two sticks and buttons, two players play every mini game at the same time — side by side on a split screen, the same waves or shift for both, or together on Blobbu Bubble's one screen (each with their own hearts and score; the run ends when both are out). Player 1 plays with W A S D and Z or Space (or the first stick), Player 2 with the arrows and Enter (or the second stick). The higher score wins. Elsewhere, two players take turns.
Controls: move with the arrows or W A S D; fire with Z, Space or Enter (hold it); pause with Esc or X; P prints after a run. On a touch screen or with a mouse, drag your Blobbu: it fires for as long as you drag, and stops when you let go. Scores live only on your printed sticker: nothing is saved.
Blobbu Bubble: one screen of platforms. Run and jump (you can jump up through platforms and land on them; walk off one side to come back on the other; fall through the bottom to drop in from the top). Blow a bubble at a Waddler or a Hopper to trap it, then touch the bubble to pop it: out drops a snack. Wait too long and it bursts out angrier and faster. Clear every critter for a snack shower and the next screen; today's five screens come in today's order. Power-ups: Speed shoes (run faster, 15 s), Long bubble (bubbles fly farther and last longer, 15 s), Big bubble (bigger bubbles that trap more easily, 15 s; Long and Big replace each other), Star burst (pops every trapped bubble at once) and, rarely, a Heart (one back, never more than three).
Blobbu Pop: bubbles hang from the ceiling. Aim along the dotted guide and fire: your bubble flies straight, bounces off the side walls and sticks where it hits. Make a group of three or more of one colour and it pops (10 points a bubble); anything left hanging from nothing drops (20 points a bubble), and if you slide the launcher underneath you catch them as snacks (10 more each). The ceiling comes down a row every 8 shots (fewer on later screens). Clear the board for the next screen, with more colours. If a bubble crosses the dashed foul line you lose a heart and the board starts over. You only ever get colours that are still on the board. Keys: left and right aim; hold up and press left or right to slide the launcher; Z, Space or Enter fires; down swaps your bubble with the next one. Touch or mouse: drag to aim and let go to fire; drag along the strip below the foul line to slide. Special bubbles: Rainbow (matches the first colour it touches), Bomb (pops the bubbles around where it lands), Guide (the full aim line, bounces included, for the next 5 shots) and Raise (the ceiling goes back up a row).
Blobbu Breaker: your Blobbu is the ball. Slide the paddle along the bottom, launch your Blobbu with fire, and bounce it through the wall of Grumblob blocks; broken blocks drop snacks, and catching snacks in a row builds the same ×2 and ×3 chain. Let your Blobbu fall past the paddle and you lose a heart — three hearts a run. Clear the wall for a bonus and the next screen, a little faster. Power-ups sometimes fall from broken blocks; slide under one to take it: Wide (a wider paddle, 15 s), Slow ball (15 s), Shield (the floor bounces the ball back into play, once) and, rarely, a Heart (one back, never more than three). Today's Run deals everyone the same blocks all day (UTC). Your stats flavour how it feels, a little, never how strong you are.
Blobbu Serpent: your Blobbu leads a chain of little blobs around a grid. Steer with the arrows (there is no fire button) and eat snacks to grow — each screen asks for a set number, and clearing it earns a bonus and a fresh, faster screen. Walls, the dark Grumblob blocks that appear from the second screen, and your own tail all cost a heart when you run into them; the serpent starts over, short, in the middle. Three hearts a run. Power-ups appear as you eat: Slow (a calmer pace, 15 s), Shrink (up to four tail blobs let go, on the spot), Shield (one crash is forgiven) and, rarely, a Heart. Now and then a snack is a purple decoy: pretty, harmless, worth nothing. Today's Run seeds the screens the same for everyone all day (UTC).
Blobbu Mimic: a memory game. Four pads sit round your Blobbu — up, right, down and left, each with its own colour, arrow and note. Your Blobbu points at them in a sequence (WATCH); then it's YOUR TURN: press the same pads in the same order with the arrows, or tap them. Copy the whole sequence for a bonus and the next round adds one more step, shown a little faster. A wrong pad, or taking too long (the bar shows the time left), costs a heart and the round plays again. Three hearts; each correct press is a snack on the chain. Today's Run: the same sequence for everyone all day. No power-ups.
Blobbu Dash: a one-button runner. Your Blobbu runs, the course scrolls, and the only thing to do is jump: tap fire (or up) to hop the Grumblob blocks, hold it to float a little farther. Snacks sit on the ground and in arcs over the blocks — run through them, or leap through the arcs — and catching them in a row builds the ×2 and ×3 chain. Stumble on a block and you lose a heart and the chain; three hearts a run, and the course only gets faster. Power-ups arrive as you catch snacks: Wings (jump again in mid-air, 15 s), Magnet (snacks drift to you, 15 s), Shield (smash straight through one block) and, rarely, a Heart. The score is snacks plus distance. Today's Run deals everyone the same course all day (UTC).
Blobbu Blitz: a shift of 25 tiny games, about four seconds each. Each one flashes a word — Pop it!, Catch!, Dodge!, Mash!, Don't press! — and a hint (press, move, hold, mash, pick or wait); win it or miss it at the buzzer. Every five games it speeds up. A miss costs one of four hearts; game 25 is a boss. Your score is the number you clear. Today's Run: the same shift for everyone all day, so you can learn it.
The Gauntlet
Five challengers, one Blobbu, hearts carry. Climb Today's ladder (the same for everyone today) to Today's Blobbu at the top. Your Blobbu starts with six hearts, keeps the ones it has left between rungs and gets one back per win, up to six. Challengers have three. Retire between rungs to print a sticker showing how far you got. Clear all five and your Blobbu ascends: same stats, a prism aura and an ascended link to take home.
Printing
Trading card: two pages, front then back. In the print dialog choose “Print on both sides” and flip on the long edge, or print one-sided and glue them back to back. Cards are 2.5 × 3.5 in, stickers 3 × 3.75 in, badges 3 in round: print at 100% (“Actual size”), not “Fit to page”.
Running the machine
Settings: open blobbu.net/arcade?setup on any device to pick the print options, how long the machine waits before going back to the start, and whether it starts muted. It makes a link; open that link on the arcade device. The settings live in the link, not on the device.
Full screen: open the Arcade menu and tap Fullscreen (or press F11 on a computer). For an unattended cabinet, use your device's kiosk or guided-access mode so players can't leave the page.
Dark or light: the Dark/Light button in the Arcade menu switches for this session. To start dark every time, choose Theme at blobbu.net/arcade?setup.
Left by mistake? Exit arcade opens the main site with a Back to the arcade button that returns to this machine's settings.
Cabinet keys
Arcade buttons and joysticks reach the page as keys (through a USB encoder), so everything works from the keyboard. Program the encoder to these keys; 1 and 2 match the usual player-start buttons.
Pin it as an app: on iPhone or iPad, open the arcade link in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. On Android, open it in Chrome, open the ⋮ menu, then Add to Home screen. On a computer, Chrome and Edge can install the page from their menu. Open it from that icon to start the arcade.