Kaboom!
1981 · Action · Atari 2600
Overview
Kaboom! (1981) is Larry Kaplan's Activision paddle game, in which the player catches the Mad Bomber's bombs in water buckets. It sold more than a million cartridges.
Deep Dive
The Mad Bomber drops bombs, and the player uses the paddle controller to catch them in a stack of three water buckets. Bombs fall faster as more are caught. Missing one sets off every bomb on screen and costs a bucket, and reaching 1,000 points restores a lost bucket.
Developer Story
Larry Kaplan designed the game, and Activision released it for the Atari 2600 in July 1981. Kaplan left Activision shortly after finishing it. Paul Wilson converted it to the Atari 5200 and Atari 8-bit computers in 1983.
Did You Know?
- Kaplan based it on Atari's 1978 arcade game Avalanche: "I just ripped off Avalanche."
- David Crane drew the Mad Bomber and the buckets, and the bomber's striped shirt came from an unreleased Crane project.
- Critics praised the Mad Bomber's changing expressions.
Sources & further reading
- Kaboom! (video game) — Wikipedia
