Bulb Boy (Nintendo Switch) Indie One Shot

The last thing I expected when I first played Bulb Boy was such a literal naming for the titular character. A boy, with a lightbulb for his head (now there's a good idea...ah? Get it?) Bulb boy wakes up one night to discover an evil presence spreading through his house. Monsters have replaced his family members, and now he must use his head (both figuratively and literally) to save his loved ones.

A mixture between side-scrolling and point-and-click, Bulb Boy is a very fun and intuitive puzzle game, one that carries enough of a horror vibe to make this one really enjoyable around Halloween. As Bulb Boy, you'll travel through every hallway and room in the house, solving all sorts of challenges to defeat the beasts in your way. There's even a mixture of flashback sequences so you can see more of Bulb Boy's grandfather and his moth-dog. Yes, moth-dog.

Each room is a self-contained puzzle where you'll have to find the right items, and put them to use in the right order to either get through to the next room, or defeat whatever resides in your current one. Only certain items within the rooms can be interacted with, and will present a small arrow over them when you can do so. Some items can be picked up, while others need to be placed in the correct spot.

What's great is the game's bubble-speak feature. If you interact with something that needs a specific item, Bulb Boy will shake his head and a thought bubble will appear over his head with a picture of the correct item. I loved this feature because not having the text makes you that much more involved in the game itself, and also limiting interactions to these thought bubbles is a nice way of nudging you in the right direction, without just directly telling you what you need to do. For instance, in one of the flashback moments, you need to give moth-dog his tennis ball (which is represented by a thought bubble with a tennis ball). The ball itself is easy to find, but getting it to moth-dog is where the difficulty lies and the game doesn't offer any other suggestions.

I've had a lot of fun with Bulb Boy. It's a really great puzzle game that gets you scratching your head, and the world created in it is so unique that, for me, it's what really brings this game home. I absolutely love the visuals in this game, how everything looks and moves. There were often times I would just wander back and forth in an area just to enjoy the scenery...okay I might have also been stuck a tiny bit. Still, this is an incredible game and so worth it, especially for fans of the puzzle genre.

Rating : 8/10
Developed and Published by : Bulbware