Bomberman Chains
information
Titleボンバーマン・チェインズ / Bomberman Chains |
|
|
ConsoleiOS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) GenrePuzzle (match-three) Players1 DeveloperRucKyGAMES PublisherKonami Digital Entertainment Releases10 February 2011
|
|
Bomberman Chains takes the familiar match-three formula of games like Bejeweled and Candy Crush, but adds some bombs into the mix! Alongside matching up lines of enemies and creating chains of comboes, you can also use bombs to clear out the playing field and rack up even higher scores. The game offers 50 levels of gameplay plus two high score time trial challenges. This game was a collaboration between small developer RuckyGames and Hudson Soft. Initially a paid game (costing $2 on the US iTunes Store), the game was relaunched on the iTunes store as free-to-play on September 9th 2014. Although performed with little fanfare in Japan, Konami of America made a big affair out of it, culminating in a hashtag and some confused and angry fans. See #bombermanrolled below. The game was delisted from the iTunes marketplace on September 10th 2015. |  |
A connect-the-shapes puzzle game. The 8x8 grid is filled with enemies, and your job is to eliminate the required amount of enemies each type to progress. You do this by swapping two adjacent tiles to make 3 or more connect in a line; this erases them, and more enemies will enter from the top of the screen.
Performing chains by connecting multiple lines before the screen 'settles' is an essential tactic; not only is it vital for completing some stages, but it adds score multipliers and can increase your firepower gauge.
In some stages, only enemies cleared a certain way count towards the level's completion: either eliminating them with a bomb blast, or only after chaining above a certain number.
Bomberman stands at the top of the screen, and walks to what column you last tapped. If you clear 4 or more enemies in one move (this can include two different types of enemies), Bomberman will drop a bomb at the top of the empty column. Bombs can be tapped at any time to detonate, and will erase any enemies caught in their blast.
Your firepower gauge can be increased by chaining multiple lines of enemies before the screen settles (each bomb detonated also counts as a chain); increasing your firepower gauge to max will increase your bomb blasts by 1 tile, up to a maximum of 7-tile range. The firepower gauge constantly drains and will decrease to a shorter range if chains are not used to keep it up.
If several seconds pass without any input, the game will flash a possible chain (or bomb) to use. If there are no bombs and no possible chains, the grid will be reset.
Each stage is timed, though the timer can be refilled by performing chains. Running out of time will result in a Game Over, and your score and firepower gauge will be reset.
There are 50 stages in total.
30 Seconds / 60 Seconds
These modes are high score challenges where you must acquire as high a score as possible within the time limit. 30 Seconds only has 6 enemy types, while 60 Seconds features all 8.
Stage 1Erase 6 of
|
Stage 2Erase 9 of
|
Stage 3Erase 11 of
|
Stage 4Erase 13 of
|
Stage 5Erase 10 of
with Bomb only |
Stage 6Erase 15 of
over 2 chains |
Stage 7Erase 30 of
|
Stage 8Erase 13 of
over 2 chains |
Stage 9Erase 15 of
over 3 chains |
Stage 10Erase 15 of
over 3 chains |
Stage 11Erase 13 of
|
Stage 12Erase 10 of
over 2 chains |
Stage 13Erase 13 of
with Bomb only |
Stage 14Erase 13 of
over 2 chains |
Stage 15Erase 12 of
with Bomb only |
Stage 16Erase 12 of
over 3 chains |
Stage 17Erase 40 of
|
Stage 18Erase 13 of
with Bomb only |
Stage 19Erase 13 of
over 3 chains |
Stage 20Erase 15 of
over Bomb only |
Stage 21Erase 18 of
|
Stage 22Erase 15 of
over 3 chains |
Stage 23Erase 20 of
|
Stage 24Erase 15 of
over Bomb only |
Stage 25Erase 18 of
over 3 chains |
Stage 26Erase 18 of
using Bomb only |
Stage 27Erase 40 of
|
Stage 28Erase 10 of
over 4 Chains |
Stage 29Erase 15 of
with Bomb Only |
Stage 30Erase 9 of
|
Stage 31Erase 11 of
|
Stage 32Erase 9 of
over 3 chains |
Stage 33Erase 10 of
with Bomb only |
Stage 34Erase 9 of
over 4 chains |
Stage 35Erase 11 of
with Bomb only |
Stage 36Erase 11 of
over 4 chains |
Stage 37Erase 50 of
|
Stage 38Erase 11 of
|
Stage 39Erase 13 of
over 3 chains |
Stage 40Erase 10 of
|
Stage 41Erase 12 of
|
Stage 42Erase 10 of
with Bomb only |
Stage 43Erase 10 of
over 2 chains |
Stage 44Erase 9 of
over 3 chains |
Stage 45Erase 11 of
with Bomb only |
Stage 46Erase 10 of
over 3 chains |
Stage 47Erase 50 of
|
Stage 48Erase 10 of
over 3 chains |
Stage 49Erase 9 of
over 4 chains |
Stage 50Erase 13 of
with Bomb only |
Bomberman will only drop one bomb per line cleared, but any additional bombs you earn are reserved until he finds a gap to put them in. It's not exactly intuitive, but this can also be used to reserve your bombs for later - if you keep Bomberman on the move by tapping the screen so he can't stop and drop a bomb, you can save them until you really need them.
Make use of the stages with few enemy types to unleash chains and rack up a huge stockpile of bombs.
You can't manually shift tiles into the empty gaps left by erased lines; however, with some fine timing, you can move a tile into a column just before it begins to fall down into place. And if you make a chain while doing this, they'll erase the moment they hit the ground!
Konami product page (dead)
A quick product page for the game that's since been removed.
Gamasutra (press release)
A reproduction of the original press release for the game.
RucKyGAMES_Info (Japanese)
The developer's blog entry announcing the game's release.
Konami Digital Entertainment press release (Japanese)
Dated July 30th 2014, announcing the game's free-to-play rerelease in Japan.
Konami: Announcement of application termination (Japanese)
Dated September 25th 2015. As of September 10th 2015 many Konami-published iOS games were delisted from the marketplace for compatibility reasons, among them Bomberman Touch: Legend of the Mystic Bomb, Bomberman Chains, and Bomberman Dojo.
Now this'll be fun. A recap of Konami USA's promotion of the game on social media.
September 12 2014, 10:32 PST: Konami's official Twitter account tweets an ominous image, alluding to something occurring within the next hour and a half. This was covered by several gaming news outlets (such as GameSpot, N4G and Tecmundo), all under the pretense of it being a reveal for the then-upcoming Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. |  |
September 12 2014, 12:00 PST: A link is posted to https://www.konami.com/bmc/, a page with what appeared to be an embedded YouTube video. Clicking it would instead trigger multiple explosions on the page, before displaying the image on the right, claiming you got "#bombermanrolled", a clunky parody of the Rickrolling meme. It encouraged viewers to spread the page through Twitter, Facebook and Google+. [src: Tecmundo] | 
|
September 12 2014, 12:18 PST: Not even twenty minutes later, Konami posts an official announcement for the game's relaunch, boasting a hashtag out of the ruse they had pulled. | 
|
September 12 2014, 12:49 PST: Konami playfully own up, and post an image of Bomberman bearing a trollface. | 
|
September 12 2014, 12:50 PST: In response to a question asking how much vitriol they received over their little prank, Konami says it went well. It totally didn't bother anyone at all.
September 12 2014, 14:40 PST: In response to "Hey @Konami, please kill yourself". | 
|
September 15 2014, 11:17 PST: Three days later, Konami shill the game once more. | 
|
September 20 2014, 17:15 PST: A week later, Konami try one last time to promote the game, hoping to spark some goodwill within their fanbase. |  |
And that's the last they tweeted about it. The "bmc" page was gone by October before it could even go viral. The game was hit with 1-star ratings and disappointed reviews from people upset by the fake-out and confused by the game. Metal Gear Solid fans were satiated with a new trailer at Tokyo Game Show on September 18th. And everyone quickly pondered why such a hubbub was raised over a game when its relaunch happened three days ago.
| RETURN TO MOBILE GAME LIST |
RETURN TO HOME PAGE |
| page last modified: 22/01/2018 | |