The Virtual Stage · Feature
The Stage Manager is Called BLIP: On a Robot That Runs the Show
Prompter, assistant director and clown rolled into one: we ask whether BLIP, the flying robot from Laser Thief, carries his role or simply gets on your nerves.
By The Editors · · 5 min read
In British theatre there is a person the audience almost never sees and without whom nothing happens. The Deputy Stage Manager sits in the dark at the side, prompt copy open, and “calls the show”: lights, sound, curtain, all on his cue. Good stage managers are invisible. In Laser Thief, the mixed-reality heist by ThreeFlavors LLC for Meta Quest, the stage manager is instead a tiny flying robot with jet propulsion, a glowing antenna and eight facial expressions. His name is BLIP, and he is anything but invisible.
That is risky casting. Comic-relief characters in games have a bad reputation, and anyone who remembers the endlessly commenting companion characters of certain adventure games knows the danger: a sidekick who speaks too often becomes a punishment. We have looked at how the game uses BLIP, and we come to a more generous verdict than we expected.
The Role: Prompter at the Start Pad
BLIP’s most important job, according to the studio, is that of prompter. Before each level he flies to the start pad and reads out a hint, and these hints are little stage directions: “Step over the low beam, duck under the high one.” Or, in the level with the first camera: “Camera light on you? FREEZE until it looks away.” That is remarkably concise. One sentence, one action. In the theatre we call that a good note: it does not tell the performer what to feel, but what to do.
Add to that a thin cyan pointing laser, with which BLIP indicates things: the pad, the hammer, the target. That, too, is stage management work in the literal sense. He marks the paths before you walk them.
The Comedy: Three Per Cent Battery
Then there is the clown. One of the menu tips, according to the studio, reads: “Did you know? I run on 3% battery and 97% enthusiasm.” If you poke BLIP with a finger, he is pushed away, spins, giggles and sprays sparks. If you are caught by a laser, he comments: “Beep boop… BUSTED. Again!” If he himself gets caught in a beam, he flashes red, glitches and is dazed for a moment.
A sidekick who speaks too often becomes a punishment. BLIP speaks often, but almost always at the right moment.
The comedy works because it is aimed at BLIP himself and never at the player. The robot is the clumsy one, not you. That is an old rule of pantomime, familiar to every British Christmas show: the Dame may slip, the audience may not. When BLIP jokes about a failure, he takes the sting out of the moment rather than rubbing salt in.
The Timing: When He Speaks and When He Doesn’t
What matters for a supporting character is not what they say, but when. Here the game shows discipline. In the main menu the first tip comes, according to the studio, after eight seconds, then a random one every 22 to 35 seconds. In the heists BLIP speaks at the pad, reacts to clean getaways (“YES! Clean getaway!”) and to failures, and he gives gadget hints only once per level. After five failures on the same level he offers that you may skip it: “Stuck? You can skip this one – the button is next to the pad.”
That last line is the most human in the whole game. A good stage manager knows when a scene can no longer be saved, and suggests moving on without embarrassing anyone.
And if you have had enough anyway: in the settings you can turn off “BLIP in heists”. The hints then appear as text on a banner. In the menu, intro and training he remains. We think this option is right, because it acknowledges that humour is a matter of taste.
The Character: A Face Without a Mouth
In design terms BLIP is a small masterpiece of reduction. Eight emotions, including Happy, Surprised, Worried, Wink, In Love and Dazed. He blinks at irregular intervals, his eyes follow you, and his lines appear in a glass speech bubble, typed out letter by letter with robotic chirping. According to the studio, he never comes closer than 40 centimetres to your head, which, for a creature that flies around at eye level, is a tactful rule.
The lineage is obvious: R2-D2, who without words had more personality than many a lead, and the robots of Pixar’s WALL·E, whose character is told almost entirely through eyes and movement. BLIP speaks more than either, but the principle is the same. The character lives on gestures, not text.
Where the Role Falls Short
Our objection concerns the script, not the casting. BLIP is the game’s only narrator; according to the studio there is no separate voice-over. He therefore carries the entire framing story around Neon City, HALO Corp and the stolen Heart of Light alone, and a clown is not built for that much exposition. When he points at the corporate tower in the intro and explains that only you can save the city, we hear an entertainer rather than a conspirator. A second voice, an antagonist with a face, would have taken the weight off BLIP and allowed him to be entirely the comedian.
Besides, his enthusiasm is constant. There are hardly any moments when he goes quiet, doubts or is afraid, except in brief reactions. A stage manager who is always in good spirits is a blessing in the rehearsal room; as a character on stage, a little more shadow would be appealing.
What a Robot Reveals About Directing
Even so, BLIP is the character you remember after an evening with Laser Thief. He takes on tasks that in other games would be handled by a menu, a pop-up or a manual, and gives them a face. That is no small thing. When a game tells us to duck, that is an instruction. When a little robot says it and then giggles, it is a scene.
We would not nominate him for an award, because we do not do that sort of thing. But we would cast him again.