Scott Whiskers?! What are you doing here?! I was expecting a flood of nostalgia from KABOOMANIA, what with it being a game developed for the immortal Amiga, as well as from the tunes, as it’s by Chris Hulsbeck (he of Turrican fame), but most of all, Bomberman. Before the PC Engine and SNES, the Amiga was my first dip into the bombing world, along with a host of forgettable public domain titles free off the cover of Amiga Format and the like. I wasn’t expecting old four-eyes.
Everything about the presentation, on the PS5!, was great. The title sequence shows a familiar face who introduces himself as Monsieur Whiskers, though just as that revelation was setting in, I saw the money shot: an Amiga. If I did ratings on this site, this would get a 10/10, but this isn’t IGN, nor do I know Fancy Factory – I just appreciate a timeless machine when I see it perched on a pixel art desk. Fancy Factory? Ah… now it’s all making sense about Scott Whiskers.
Anyway, back to the story. KABOOMANIA is a maze bomber where you play Scott, who has been trapped within the game and has to escape. Fully leaning into the retro side of things (this is available on the Amiga 500, 1200 and CD32!), it doesn’t introduce anything new whatsoever and melds multiple sub-genres such as deck-building or rogue-likes for the sake of it. You have your premise; now focus on the 100% unadulterated gameplay. Kids: this is what games used to be like before the tutorials, cinematics and paywalls.
There are over 1000 handcrafted levels, and it’s evident in the very first dozen or so how different they look and feel. Enemies are plentiful, and the visuals, from a nostalgic perspective, are lovely and garish like Zool or any other Amiga game for that matter. This isn’t about minimalism or whitespace – there are colours and textures everywhere, and that all adds to the eyeball assault; the wallpaper will take your eyes off the drapes – KABOOMANIA is chaotic.
In case you haven’t played a game like this, the goal is to place timed bombs to create pathways to destroy enemies. It’s a teeny bit like Pac-Man but with blocks, and the ghosts don’t seek you out, but there are plenty of power-ups. When you’ve killed all the enemies, a portal appears to launch you to the next level, though it’s often worth it to go around and destroy more blocks as they drop further power-ups to carry to the next level. There isn’t an overpowering timer, but every so often, random bombs drop on the map, further adding to the risk as you have limited lives to do it in.
Bombs blow up in four directions, and if you’re in the firing line, you’ll lose a life. You can drop a bomb and hide around an adjacent corner, or simply stand farther away. This is great to start with, though collecting power-ups will increase the range of the bombs (which works for and against you), and you can drop multiple bombs. This is great for crowd control but reiterates the need for a strategy as it’s so easy to trap yourself and get caught in the explosions. The best bit for multiple bombs is multiplayer, and I can’t stress how fiendishly enjoyable it is to spam another three players in couch play and watch them fume in real time. Again, it works for and against you as they can also do the same and, more appropriately, you’ll get caught in the placement of your own bombs.
KABOOMANIA is huge. As mentioned, it’s 1000 or so levels, and it’s a continuation in the main campaign (besides multiplayer for four) without any level select. Wait: 1000 levels without any level select like world selection or checkpoints? No. Instead, there’s a classic password system that shows you at the beginning of each level what the code is to jump back in from where you left off. The problem with this approach is that it is shown at the beginning of the stage, and if you’re anything like me, you will continually do the ‘just one more game’ loop and forget to write them down. This is the bit where I reminisce even further back to the days of the Amiga and publications such as Amiga Format where you could look up the codes for when you get stuck. Ahh… the days when one could cheat freely.
It’s summary, KABOOMANIA is a blas.. nah, too easy. KABOOMANIA is great fun – more so that it’s a local four-player. Undoubtedly, Amiga fans will be in heaven with this and probably boot up Lemon Amiga shortly after playing it and revisit their back catalogue, or, if you’re really ‘cool’, delve into your big box collection and boot it from the 3.5 inch floppy. Chances are you’re single. Coincidentally, while this is available for every platform including the Amiga, it apparently has its own floppy, too. Bet that’s a phrase you’re familiar with, Big Box Boy. Right, this is finished – go check it out!
