Just a couple months ago, I reflected on bob’s game. While the public never really learned what Robert Pelloni’s goal was, underneath the layers of eccentricities and deceit was a fun, playable demo. That somehow turned into a pitch for an indie console called the nD, which has disappeared from the Internet in 2013.
Two days ago, someone anonymously (edit: formerly Sardek of the bobsgame.com forum before it was shut down) left a comment on my previous post to inform me that the site for bob’s game had been updated. He also mentioned that no one else besides me had talked about bob’s game recently. Of course, I had to check it out.
bobsgame.com now loads a playable browser game. It takes less than 10 minutes to play through it, so jump over there and give it a try if you want the full experience.
The game opens to a pixel art setting that’s obviously a representation of Pelloni’s room from his webcam feeds. I appear to be controlling Bob, and I can turn on his lights, start the coffee maker, turn on his computer, and begin working. At this point I lose control as the game’s speed increases, and I watch Bob hard at work. Eventually he turns off the lights and I regain control. Moving Bob to his bed, he goes to sleep for the night. The next day a unknown voice tells me it’s time. I use the elevator to leave the room.
After getting out of the elevator, I lose control again. Bob walks down a hallway and past a large room with many people. Lights come on, and Bob is standing in front of a room full of people watching him on stage. It appears to be the interdimensional bob’s bame tournament that was to be part of bob’s game.
Yuu approaches the stage, and then I take control of Yuu to play some games on his nD. I play a variety of puzzle games with no instructions, figuring them out as I play. There were two variations of Tetris that I played along with what seemed like a clone of Dr. Mario. There were also a couple games that, to my knowledge, weren’t based on any previous games. They were all fun and interesting, but I liked the idea of exploiting a glitch from the original bob’s game demo more. When I lost, Bob goes on a long discussion of stagnant state of the games industry.
Somehow, this segues into Bob talking about bob’s game being finished and the next phase, nD World, starting. Now I’m asked to create an account with an e-mail address and password before being asked to donate. Is he really hoping to raise money in this way, or is he poking fun at all the crowds-sourced products making promises before showing and deliverables?
You might notice in the video that the game seems to lag sometimes. I think this is due to my video recording software and not the quality of the game. However, the game does have a couple a couple small problems. For example, I had trouble getting into the elevator on the recorded playthrough. My character would always stick a little, but this recording was particularly bad.
I don’t know what Robert Pelloni has planned. I don’t know how much of what happened was part of his plan. Was the nD just staged to be part of bob’s game all along, or is it failed product? I’m guessing it was real and failed, but I doubt I’ll ever know the truth. All I can do now is wait.
Polygons and Pixels 
I just wish that some of the gaming press would pick this up. They haven’t done anything with Bob’s Game since the initial launch of the nD, and this would be a good story for them to pick up.
It’s kinda hard for them to take him seriously at this point, and it’s not hard to see why. That said, what he has released here is certainly worth playing, if not covering.
Well, define “gaming press.” I just made a post about this on Game-Boyz. I review iPhone games, review occasional PC games, and cover events as an editor at Game-Boyz. Admittedly it’s a small site that’s not incredibly well known, but I attended E3 for them, so it must count!
http://www.game-boyz.com/content/node/18857
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Well, now that it’s off small blogs, I could see Kotaku or something picking this up.
Frankly, I am also at the stage where I think that Rob’s Game (the real-life nD/DS release, differentated from the more-addictive-than-Tetris ‘Bob’s Game’) is not a real game itself, but rather an immersive satire of the gaming industry. Even so, I wish that the original Rob’s Game come out already!!
Another thing I have in mind is that there should be an unofficial forum for all things Robert Pelloni… maybe even a Wiki(a). After all, Rob deletes his past… A LOT. Besides, we loyal fans (now more on par with the Whovians than the Duke Nukems) would want a place to discuss things Rob WITHOUT him deleting our work. (I still have The Game About Bob’s Game.)
I suppose having the Bob’s Game forum hosted by him was a mistake, eh? I never really posted there, but I’d been there.
What do you mean by The Game About Bob’s Game?
There was a fangame called ‘The Game About Bob’s Game.’ The premise was a cause-and-effect game that chronicled Robert Pelloni’s 100-day-protest and his development of Rob’s Game. The fangame is a .nds homebrew game.
I will definitely look into it. Thanks for letting me know!
this guy makes me sad, he seems to be working fairly hard on something or other but he hasn’t shown any hint of great talent at anything other than getting people to talk about him
he must be a competent enough programmer I guess, to make any playable demos at all, but if he were gonna make any really great new software engine then he wouldn’t have targeted the DS, which isn’t powerful enough for that kind of thing, and if he were gonna do some excellent piece of storytelling via the conventional JRPG-ish engine he’s shown us then surely we would have seen some greater hint of his writing talents by now than some rambling trollery and that weird, snarky DS demo
he’s been at this for years and years and it just seems like he’s got a megaphone but nothing to say, so he just occasionally makes some weird squawking noises and then hides
if he’s just messing around then that’s cool but sometimes he comes across like he really thinks this project is worth pouring a lot of his life into, and from here it appears that it isn’t
If you go on the website, the live feed of Bob seems to have been removed. Also, if you sign up for a new account, the whole “bob’s pass” thing isn’t there anymore. I guess he was really trying to make money with that, but it didn’t work.
I wish I knew what his plan is!