Get ready for Teenage Blob - an upcoming release that has A LOT going on in it. Try to keep up.
Touted as “half game, half album,” Teenage Blob is the brainchild of game developer Team Lazerbeam and the band The Superweaks, and is a split collaboration as some kind of weird hybrid video game and musical release.
It actually makes more sense than it sounds. You see, back in my day - the 90s - spilt albums were common fare, at least within the punk rock and indie scene. Bands like The Ataris and Useless I.D. would put out a shared record featuring the same amount of songs from each band as a split LP. Sometimes, you might even be lucky enough to have the two bands performing on a single original track.
That last sentence is essentially just what the Superweaks and Team Lazerbeam did. The Superweaks recorded six new songs, while Team Lazerbeam created six new games. The two merged everything together to create a split video game/album in Teenage Blob, which tells the story of an amorphous teen trying to catch their favorite band play live. Unsurprisingly, though, that is easier said than done.
The Teenage Blob can’t head to the show until they get some new threads, but for that to happen, they’ll need to work for some cold, hard spending cash. Players will be responsible for turning the Teenage Blob’s dreams into a reality.
Players can “expect a tale of bands, butts, and bootleg Battletoads,” which is no doubt referring to the skateboarding scene in the Teenage Blob reveal trailer, not to mention the Paperboy rip-off. However, players can also expect “elements of dating sims, RPGs, rhythm games, and arcade classics.” Clearly, there is something for everyone here.
In all seriousness, for those who have a history with split releases, there is something incredibly nostalgic and charming about what Teenage Blob seems to represent: punk rock, indie gaming, and just an overall good time. The reveal trailer itself is even vaguely reminiscent of the trailers for teenage rom-coms in the 90s (when we had to catch them live or on a VHS recording, since there was no such thing as YouTube). At any rate, Teenage Blob looks like a fun romp through a weird little world with a solid tracklist. What more could you possibly need?