Bomberman (1983 video game)

Bomberman

In the NES/Famicom release, the eponymous character, Bomberman, is a robot that must find his way through a maze while avoiding or destroying enemies. He can set bombs to attack enemies and destroy rocks that block his path; initially, the bombs explode after a short delay. Doors leading to further maze rooms are hidden under rocks, as are power-up items that grant abilities such as placing multiple bombs at once, increasing their blast radius, and being able to set them off at any desired moment.

Bomberman will turn human when he escapes and reaches the surface. Each game has 50 levels in total. The original home computer games are more basic and have some different rules. Notably, completing the NES and Famicom version reveals that the game is a prequel to Hudson Soft's NES port of Broderbund Software's 1983 game Lode Runner. Upon clearing the final screen, Bomberman is shown turning into Lode Runner's unnamed protagonist. In the Japanese version of the game, the player is explicitly told that Bomberman will 'See [them] in Lode Runner', while in the international version, they are instead asked if they can recognise the protagonist from another Hudson game.^[6]

Development

Bomberman was written in 1980 to serve as a tech demo for Hudson Soft's BASIC compiler.^[7] This very basic version of the game was given a small-scale release for Japanese PCs in 1983 and the European PCs the following year.^[7][8] The Famicom version was developed (ported) by Shinichi Nakamoto,^[9] who reputedly completed the task alone over a 72 hour period.^[10] According to