Down And Out In Wobblyland: Creating The Adventure

Halloween season is here, and as is tradition, I’m celebrating the season with a spooky game release. My newest release, “Down And Out In Wobblyland,” is a scary adventure for the Locus system. Set in the derelict remains of the Wobblyland theme park, it casts you as a group of former employees breaking into the closed park to correct a wrong from years before. However, while this park is closed, abandoned, and hidden deep within a forest, it still has a very active supernatural life. 

Here is a breakdown of how I designed the adventure, from the inspirations to the design decisions. 

What Inspired Wobblyland? 

[Or The Inherent Trauma Of Growing Up In England During The ’90s] 

Wobblyland is inspired by a weird slice of 90s British pop culture, one so odd that it’s hard to know how to put it into words. The whole thing may sound like a fever dream, but I want to assure you that I’m not making this up. 

In 1991, a show called Noel’s House Party landed on British screens. House Party was a chaotic take on the classic Saturday night variety show format hosted by longtime TV personality Noel Edmonds. The show featured many segments, including competitions, skits, and celebrity guests. And this whole thing was held together by a loose framing device which suggested that the set the show was filmed on was actually the living room of a grand manor house. Said manor house sits in the fictional town of Crinkly Bottom (yeah, prepare yourself for lots of terrible innuendoes), and most of the show’s games and skits played into this. 

One of the segments was called “Gotcha.” During this segment, Noel and the crew would pull hidden-camera pranks on celebrities. Usually, this involved telling the celeb they were coming to film some fake TV show or commercial and then having everything go wrong, seeing how much the star would take before storming off. In the show’s second season, this segment introduced Mr. Blobby. Said to be a new children’s TV character, Mr. Blobby would torment the celebrity by smashing the set and constantly refusing to follow directions, causing chaos as the celebrity attempted to keep the scene going. 

And somehow, Blobby and his antics became weirdly popular with viewers. Of course, after the second season aired, they could no longer use the character as part of the hidden camera pranks. So, Blobby ended up taking over the main show, appearing in loads of skits and games. And from here, his fame grew, and eventually, the whole country became obsessed with Blobby. 

Mr. Blobby got his own toys, video games, novelty soaps, and even a Blobby brand of tomato ketchup. Also, to really hammer the point home, he released a single, and this single became a massive hit. Meaning Mr. Blobby was ‘90s England’s version of a TikTok star. 

Desperate to expand his empire further, Noel Edmonds took Blobby and tried to move into the theme park market. Famously, there were two “main” Blobby and House Party theme parks. Those being Crinkly Bottom at Cricket St. Thomas and ‘Noel Edmonds’ World of Crinkley Bottom,’ at Happy Mount Park, Morecambe. 

But this wasn’t all, as Blobby also took over parts of Pleasurewood Hills park and Dobwalls Adventure Park. And later, in 1996, Edmonds would open Gotchaland, an attraction based on another House Party character. 

But, it is the first park, Crinkly Bottom at Cricket St. Thomas, which is both the most infamous and the one that inspired the Wobblyland found in my adventure. 

Crinkly Bottom at Cricket St. Thomas: The Moderate Rise And Massive Fall

Before we go on, I must give Mr. Blobby Collection and Dunblobbin a shoutout. Both sites are fantastic resources for learning about Mr. Blobby’s history. They reminded me of stuff I only had vague memories of and introduced me to bits of Blobby I had never seen before. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to learn so much about these parks and their history. 

Let’s start with a short history of Crinkly Bottom at Cricket St. Thomas. Cricket St. Thomas was a famous wildlife park for many years, but in 1994 it decided to expand its offerings with Crinkly Bottom, an area themed around Mr. Blobby. This new area featured several shops, a water ride, and several play areas for kids. But this area’s main attraction was a recreation of Mr. Blobby’s house. Guests could walk through the house and view several scenes. This included one diorama where you could watch Mr. Blobby take a shower in an image that resembles an inverted version of the film Psycho directed by a highly-medicated Dario Argento. 

The park was popular for quite a while, attracting loads of families. However, in 1996 Noel Edmonds pulled out of the park, and over the next few years, the place slowly removed all mentions of Blobby before finally closing in 1998. 

However, after the closure, Mr. Blobby’s house wasn’t demolished. It was left to rot at the back of the park. A fact discovered by urban explorers, leading to many fantastic photos of the decaying park hitting the internet, attracting loads of attention and more (illegal) visitors. This was until the owners of Cricket St Thomas opted to totally level the area in 2014 to stop random people sneaking into the park. So much like Blobby himself, Crinkly Bottom at Cricket St. Thomas holds a strange place in English pop culture. 

Why Locus? 

Making a game inspired by the abandoned Crinkly Bottom park has long been on my to-do list. But what made me finally knuckle down and do it was a game jam based around the horror game Locus.

Full disclosure, during the Locus Kickstarter, I was one of the stretch goal writers, and I’m friendly with a few of the game’s writers, so I’m not unbiased. But I do legitimately love the game. I’ve always wanted a TTRPG that captures the horror and atmosphere of Silent Hill 2, and Locus pulls it off expertly. 

I also wanted to use Locus for this idea because the system makes the location into the antagonist. Sure, there are monsters, but the game focuses on how the adventure’s setting and history shape the horror found within, making it perfect for my desire to make an adventure module based around Urban Exploration gone wrong. 

The other main reason for this choice is the “Layers” system Locus uses. Basically, every location the players visit has several different forms it can take, depending on the players’ status and their previous actions. The first layer is close to the real world, with only moderate supernatural elements. Then as you descend the layers, the environment gets gradually more twisted and horrific, and the supernatural becomes more overt. Representing the players becoming more deeply entangled in the location and its mysteries. 

Writing The Basics

So, with a game system picked, it was time to write the story and design my map. The first thing I did was sit down and work out what the adventure’s core story was. It honestly didn’t take me long, as I came in with an almost fully formed idea that perfectly fit the system. Obviously, I’m not going to share all the details here as I don’t want to spoil the experience for people who plan to run the adventure. But rest assured, it is a delightfully spooky romp that I think you’ll enjoy. 

Once I had the story, I set about designing the Layers, as they’re a massive part of the system and the mechanic that makes Locus stand out against other horror games. 

Very early on, I decided that Layer 1, the one closest to reality, would be a ruined park, much like the abandoned Cricket St. Thomas. However, rather than Layer 2 being more destroyed or horrific. I decided I wanted Layer 2 to function as a flashback, taking players back to when Wobblyland was open and functional. 

Because I think that is what makes Mr. Blobby so weird and terrifying to the modern viewer. Because Blobby is such a basic and over-the-top parody of a kids’ TV character, he feels uncanny and suspicious. It often seems like he is an alien creature poorly mimicking human behavior to try and win your trust, despite hiding a sinister ulterior motive.

In fact, looking back at old Mr. Blobby sketches now feels weirdly dissociative. The washed-out neon colors of 90s TV mixed with the light fuzz of poorly preserved VHS recordings, the celebrities you only half-remember, the strange malformed jokes, and the utterly lazy slapstick. It has this odd hazy feeling to it. Like it makes sense, but it still feels off somehow, like a 4th hand account of a comedy sketch. 

It is a bit like when you wake up hungover, your mind filled with half-forgotten memories of the night before, and you sit in the pale light of morning, questioning exactly why you did what you did last night. Blobby is that, on a country-wide scale. 

And I wanted Wobblyland to have that same odd feeling. While this second layer seems joyous and wonderful. Something about it is suspicious because it’s a little too good. Plus, it’s a relic of an earlier, forgotten time, a joke without a punchline, making it feel all the weirder. 

Having the second layer be more vibrant also works to disarm players. When you play a horror game, you expect the game to get slowly more shocking with bigger scares. Making the second layer look more normal than the first subverts expectations and puts players on edge. As they suddenly don’t know what’s coming. And, when they’re thrown off, they’re more vulnerable to the scares the GM may throw their way. It is Haunted House design 101, but it is still a fantastic design trick that opens the door for some exciting scares and nerve-wracking moments. 

Making The Park’s Layout

Once I worked the story out, I started to design the park’s layout. This part of the process was a delicate balancing act, as while I wanted to create an environment that helped guide the players through the story, I still wanted Wobblyland to feel like a theme park that could have existed in England during the mid-90s. 

But I also had to make a park that international readers could understand. Because English theme parks (especially ones like Crinkly Bottom) are slightly different from the parks found in America.

For instance, English theme parks are often much more compact than American equivalents. They’re simply not on the scale of Disneyland or Universal Studios. And this affects their atmosphere and how the parks structure the visitor experience. Plus, the UK also has a lot of local amusement parks that are way smaller and operate on a lower budget than most famous regional American theme parks. But despite this, they attract hundreds of visitors every single year. However, many of these parks are not “theme parks” in the truest sense. They’re usually scenic or wildlife parks featuring small flat rides and other attractions as an added bonus. This is what Crinkly Bottom at Cricket St. Thomas was. 

At its peak, it only had one major ride, with the rest of the area being made up of walk-through dioramas and shops. It was designed to work with the attached wildlife park rather than being a full-day park in its own right. 

So, to make the park more understandable and intuitive for international players and to open up more options for set pieces, I made Wobblyland more American, giving it several bigger rides and a larger footprint. I also removed the wildlife park element so players could totally focus on the warped nostalgia. 

However, I made sure to retain several elements of Crinkly Bottom at Cricket St. Thomas, as I think they’re essential to the park’s atmosphere. The main one was the house in the center. In Cricket St. Thomas, the house belonged to Mr. Blobby. While in Wobblyland, it belongs to Mr. Wobbly. 

For me, this house is what made the park so distinct. The idea of traveling to worship the domestic grind of a character defined by their refusal to stick to rules feels so weirdly English. It is like the negaverse version of a trip to Buckingham Palace. 

This house sits in the center of the map for several reasons. Firstly, it is a constant reminder of the park’s former purpose, continually reminding players of what this place used to be in the same way the castles at Disney parks act as visible icons and mascots of their respective parks. Secondly, it is a place I wanted players to visit often, so putting it in the center means that players get loads of chances to explore it or walk past it. Finally, it is an unmistakable visual landmark, making it easier for players to navigate the park without getting lost or turned around. 

One of my core design aims was to make the park as open as possible, with each area easy to access from every other part. I did this for two reasons. The first is to make the place easy to navigate. Allowing players to quickly return to earlier locations to find clues or revisit old details. It also means that players will have a chance to experience all three layers of every area, opening up more opportunities for horror. 

The second is to make sure that there is nowhere to hide. The players can not barricade themselves in one area and defend it. They are constantly vulnerable from all sides, meaning that scares and monsters can easily outflank them if they’re not on their toes. 

Designing the layout 

Working out the layout was tricky, and it’s something I redid several times. I wanted something visually interesting without becoming overwhelming during repeat readings, especially as GMs will be checking the module a lot while running the game. 

At first, I considered a darker, more horror-themed palette, but eventually, I decided to play into the dissociative feeling Mr. Blobby gave me. So I added a simple yellow border with several faded patches to capture the idea of a happy place falling into decay. I paired this with digitally-altered images of fairground attractions. I altered the colors and blurred the edges of these images to give them a dream-like look, making them seem like a cross between early-90s CGI concept sketches and hypnogogic hallucinations. Really helping push the strange otherworldly nature of the park. 

Conclusion 

So that is how “Down And Out In Wobblyland” came together. It has been a long process, but I’m super proud of the result. 

And if this is your first introduction to Mr. Blobby, then you have my deepest sympathies. 

You can get the adventure here: