Of all the games I never expected to review here on Space-Biff!, Blob Lobber is pretty much at the top of the list. I can sum up nearly all of its gameplay in one sentence. Here, I’ll prove it: it’s about flipping flimsy cardboard discs to hopefully touch other flimsy cardboard discs — which, last I checked, you could do with a deck of secondhand playing cards and benefit from a heavier cardstock than these suckers provide. Blob Lobber was published by Steve Jackson Games, but it’s the polar opposite of their monstrous deluxe edition of Ogre. A game so small I’ve lost it in the couch cushions. Twice.

But here’s the twist: I’m going to give it a positive review. Positive-ish. Not glowing. I’m not insane. But it’s entered my regular rotation for one very dependable reason.

This is Blob Lobber.

Don’t be confused, Blob Lobber isn’t a good game. Like I said, you flip these cardboard discs. Not from any old place, but from about twelve inches above the table — which is roughly thirty centimeters for anyone inhabiting a nation that hasn’t accidentally lost a climate orbiter to the Martian atmosphere because of a conversion error — and, well, there you go. You flip them. They land somewhere. If they land atop a monster, you have killed that monster and therefore earned its points, but only if the kablooey side of the card is showing. Otherwise there are now more monsters to lob blobs at.

There are two details to consider beyond the flipping. First, there are toxic monsters that do something. I don’t know what they do because I haven’t seen them land, and because there are so few of them and the discs are so flimsy that every game only results in a half-dozen hits. So much for toxic monsters. Second, you are also a monster, one of four colors, and monsters of that hue are now your friends. Blowing them up will subtract points rather than adding them, so, uh, don’t blow up your monsters. But honestly, I’m only saying that to cover my butt. You’ll probably still blow them up, because the discs are so flimsy that they go wherever they listeth, usually thanks to a breeze outside your house pushing on the glass windows and perturbing the atmospheric pressure within.

Like I said, Blob Lobber isn’t a good game. Maybe if the discs had been heavier, coasters rather than coasters (like on the breeze, haha), maybe it would be worth a look. Maybe if… nope, I can’t come up with another hypothetical. Blob Lobber is that basic.

So you know why I keep playing it? Here’s why:

This is the reason I play Blob Lobber.

Baby Cate isn’t a baby anymore. Now she’s Catebug. Take note, world, because she’s going to cure something. Not cancer; that’s before her time. Whatever horror-show thing comes after cancer, that’s what she’ll cure.

And she got her start on Blob Lobber.

Oh, she plays other stuff. Drachenturm, for example. Next week I intend to write about a genuinely good game that she likes. But when it comes to counting and subtracting, and avoiding the wrong color of monster, and not getting too disappointed when her discs float away to some other subcontinent on the wings of a passing butterfly, so light is this damnable cardstock — well, Blob Lobber is perfect. So perfect that she keeps squirreling away the game in the couch cushions so I can’t disappear it under cover of night.

Congratulations, Blob Lobber. I reviewed you. I didn’t even begrudge the process. You’re fine, the very definition of a gateway game, and not the way we say “gateway game” pejoratively to mean a game that’s best played with your non-gamer friends. You’re the type of game that works wonders for getting a five-year-old girl to learn some minor subtraction.

But one suggestion — that 6+ age recommendation? Slash off a year and I’ll give you an extra gold star or something.

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A complimentary copy was provided.