Bulb Boy

Genre: Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

.

Review:

Bulb Boy is a Graphic Adventure released in 2015 on PC, ported to mobile devices in 2016, then to Xbox One and Nintendo Switch in 2017, and then to PlayStation 4 in 2018. This game puts players in the role of a young child with a light bulb for a head as he tries to rescue his lamp-headed grandfather, who has been… kidnapped? Possessed? Transformed? Yeah, it’s not exactly clear what’s going on here.

The gameplay here is depicted without text or dialogue, with the presentation making use of 2D visuals that are dark and green-tinted, save for scenes of violence when the tint changes to red. Everything here looks unsettling and off-putting, with a lot of gross-out imagery (bugs, scat, spit, mysterious goo, you name it) and occasionally violent imagery. These visuals are backed by sound design and a soundtrack that is just as unsettling and off-putting. I always find it odd when a game clearly goes out of its way to make me not want to play it, and here I guess I can say… they’ve accomplished these goals quite well?

As for the gameplay, this is fairly standard Graphic Adventure fare. Interact with your environment, sometimes picking up objects to use later, and so on. A little confusion is injected here as it takes some acclimating to Bulb Boy’s unusual abilities – he can remove his head and fling it around, and is mostly unfazed by seemingly lethal electric shocks.

Overall, I think Bulb Boy is a decent but unspectacular Graphic Adventure, but it’s one with a limited appeal. Not everyone is going to appreciate this game’s off-putting aesthetic and content. However, if you’re a fan of Graphic Adventure games and like ’em weird, gross, off-putting, and creepy, then perhaps this is a game you’ll enjoy.

tl;dr – Bulb Boy is a Graphic Adventure where players take the role of a young boy with a light bulb for a head as he tries to rescue his grandfather. As Graphic Adventure games go, this is decent, but the extremely off-putting presentation and topic matter full of gross-out imagery and moments of extreme violence will absolutely not appeal to everyone.

Grade: C

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