How to play Kaboom! online
- Move the buckets: left and right arrows
- Start the next group of bombs: Z (the lower buttons; the upper ones are not used)
- Choose the game: keyboard keys 1, 2 or 3 (one player, two players taking turns, or Pitch & Catch)
- Large or small buckets: the BUCKET key on the keypad overlay; open the on-screen keypad with K, move to it and press Z
- Start: Enter
- Pause: P
- Player 2: J and L to move, N for the button
- Restart, full screen and save states: move the mouse over the screen to open the emulator’s toolbar
Kaboom! was designed for a paddle, and on the console the 5200’s analog stick stood in for it. Here the arrow keys move the buckets like a joystick.
Gameplay
The Mad Bomber paces along the rooftops dropping bombs, and you slide a stack of three water buckets along the bottom to catch them. The bombs come in groups. Every bomb in a group falls at the same speed, and each new group is faster and worth more per bomb than the last. When you have caught a whole group, press the fire button to start the next one.
Miss one bomb and every bomb still on the screen goes off and your bottom bucket is lost. For every 1,000 points you earn a replacement bucket, but only if you have already lost one; three is the limit. The game ends when the last bucket is gone, and if your score is high enough you enter three initials with the stick and button.
Game variations
- Game 1: one player against the Mad Bomber.
- Game 2: two players take turns against the Mad Bomber, each with their own score.
- Game 3, Pitch & Catch: new to this version. One player moves the Mad Bomber and decides where the bombs drop, the other catches. When the catcher misses, the roles swap. Only the catcher scores, and high scores are not recorded in this game.
The BUCKET key switches between large and small buckets before you start; the small ones are the harder game.
Tips
- Pick the big buckets first. That is the first piece of advice from the programmer’s own notes in the manual.
- Watch the bomber, not the bombs. Every bomb starts where he is standing, so following him keeps you under the next drop.
- In Pitch & Catch, park under the bomber. Stay under him as he moves so each bomb needs only a small correction.
- Breathe between groups. The next group waits for your button press, so use the break to re-centre.
The story behind Kaboom! on the 5200
Larry Kaplan designed the original Atari 2600 Kaboom! for Activision in 1981, taking the idea from Atari’s 1978 arcade game Avalanche; in his own words he “just ripped off Avalanche”, replacing its falling rocks with a single bomber because the 2600 could not draw them all. David Crane drew the buckets and the Mad Bomber and gave him a face that changes with how the game is going. The 2600 cartridge won the 1982 Arcade Award for best audio-visual effects and sold more than a million copies.
Paul Willson converted the game to the Atari 8-bit computers in October 1983 and to the 5200 in November 1983, as Activision’s cartridge FZ-001. Both versions add the Pitch & Catch mode and music. Reviewers at the time thought the computer version improved on the 2600 game, and AtariProtos notes that the 5200’s analog controller comes close to the feel of the original paddle.
