Title: Kaboom
Console: Atari 2600
Company: Activision
Created By: Larry Caplan (programmer) & David Crane (graphics)

You read that right, 2 people made this game, from suit to nuts. You look at the size of the teams making today's blockbuster games, and a team can easily top out at over 100 employees.


*fun fact, this image is 1.8K, the entirety of Kaboom! was only 2k. who is driving? bear is driving! how can that be?*

Kaboom! places you in the role of a 3 tier barrel. Your job? Catch the bombs dropped by the creatively named Mad Bomber. Any missed bombs would remove a tier from your barrel, starting form the bottom and working its way up. That's it, thats all there is to it. But the mechanic and controls made this simple experience ridiculously addictive.

gimmicky controllers are nothing new, despite the wii trying to convince you otherwise. Kaboom was controlled with the atari 'paddle' which was basically a cheap plastic spinner, not unlike those found on arkanoid cabinets. atari was kind enough to bundle the two together, b/c they realized gaming is more fun with friends.



while simple, the controller worked well, and made for a very enjoyable experience. the level of difficulty ramped up at a pretty steep pace, but kept the game from being dull (no one enjoys playing 10 stages of fairly simple gameplay to be challenged later on). anyways, this game kept me entertained for years, and figured i'd give it some props.

try out the flash version
the look and sounds are very faithful to the atari original, but paddles > mouse.



*bonus content*
while googling images for the paddle controller, i came across the amiga joyboard

came bundled with skiing game mogul maniac. which allowed the player to controller a skier by shifting their weight. sounds similar to something new and exciting from nintendo.