released just prior to Christmas in 1989 as Absolute's first game on the NES. Crane recalled the development process for Absolute's early games to be enjoyable, but explained that "under the rule of Nintendo, the publishing side of the game business was really tough", emphasizing how frequently game publishers went out of business in those years. The team was originally in talks with a writer-producer of the Transformers animated features to simultaneously launch the A Boy and His Blob video game with a tie-in toy and a film, but the plans never came to fruition due to deadlines and difficulty in dividing production resources into three ways between a game, toy, and movie. When A Boy and His Blob was released in Japan by Jaleco in November 1990, it was retitled . Reception Critical reception for A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia has been mixed. Many reviews published during the game's original release positively regarded the game's premise of a boy advancing by using a blob companion as a tool-set. Staff for the magazines Mean Machines and Dragon and Edward J. Semrad of The Milwaukee Journal all remarked the game as having fun, challenging gameplay and being a creative and original idea. The two reviewers of Mean Machines gave praise to the graphical quality of A Boy and His Blob, commenting: "Some of the backdrops are digitized and superbly coloured. The boy moves smoothly [and] realistically and the Blob himself is a masterpiece of animation". Simrad, who labeled the game as an updated version of Crane's previous work Pitfall!, was not as impressed by the graphics, claiming that the programmer always preferred to use the available memory for the size of the maze. The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly found A Boy and His Blob to be strictly average due to its few enemies and a lack of scrolling screens. Although they made similar, positive comments about its unique gameplay formula, one of the writers felt it "never fully realizes its potential". This opinion was echoed by Lucas M. Thomas of IGN, who gave a more negative review of the game: "While the idea behind A Boy and His Blob was certainly unique, even praiseworthy, the execution of the concept didn't exactly make for a very fun game". Thomas faulted the game's controls; its vast, empty environments; and a limited number of essential jelly beans to advance,