Atomic Bomberman

Atomic Bomberman
North American cover art
Developer(s) Interplay Productions
Publisher(s) Interplay Productions
Designer(s) Jeremy Airey
Kurt W. Dekker
Series Bomberman
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
Release
Genre(s) Arcade, maze
Mode(s) Single player, multiplayer

Atomic Bomberman is a game by Interplay Productions for the PC that was released in 1997. It was the first original Bomberman game to be developed for Windows, and the second game of the series made for the PC, following 1992's Bomberman.

The game is relatively unusual in the Bomberman series, as it was officially licensed from Hudson Soft and developed by an American team. Most titles in the series were developed in Japan. It has a different look and feel compared to other Bomberman titles as a result (despite basic gameplay being unchanged), using pre-rendered 3D characters and backgrounds as opposed to hand-drawn animated sprites, techno-inspired background music and the extensive use of voice samples during gameplay. The voice clips are by voice actors Charlie Adler and Billy West.

Level editor

The game includes a hidden level editor which can only be obtained by pressing E six times in the main menu. The player then has the ability to edit existing maps as well as to create new maps. Maps used by the game are in the form of "scheme files" (.sch filename extension). The map editor is a simple interface, showing the map, dotted with different colors (0 to 9) to represent player spawns. A function called DENSITY chooses how "dense" the collection of breakable items are. The Powerup Manager chooses the list of powerups to be included, how often, whether they can be destroyed and what happens when two conflicting powers are picked (such as Bomb Splooge versus Glove). The editor also sports a basic graphic interface: the player can switch between the "Green Acre" theme and a monochrome, patterned representation.

Development

Atomic Bomberman was built from the code for Super Bomberman 3, which publisher/developer Interplay Productions licensed from Bomberman franchise owner Hudson Soft.[2] Project leader Jeremy Airey commented, "We're trying to make [Bomberman] a little more modern, but we don't need to change the way it plays at all."[2]

The development team had ambitions of the game supporting twice as many players as any other version of the game, until the release of Saturn Bomberman (which supports up to ten players) made this goal unrealistic.[2]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/196667-atomic-bomberman/data
  2. 1 2 3 "NG Alphas: Bomberman". Next Generation. No. 27. Imagine Media. March 1997. pp. 48–51.
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