Bomb Jack

Description

Bomb Jack places Jack among platforms suspended before recognisable scenery, with 24 bombs to collect before advancing. Jack can leap considerable distances, slow his descent, change direction in mid-air, and perform a higher turbo jump, giving the game unusually flexible aerial movement. Enemies continuously enter the screen and pursue Jack using different movement patterns. Collecting the currently lit bomb increases the score, while gathering 23 lit bombs in sequence awards a substantial bonus. Power tokens occasionally appear: P temporarily immobilises enemies and allows them to be collected, E awards an extra life, and B increases the value of subsequent bombs. The twelve principal layouts eventually repeat with altered backgrounds and increasing difficulty rather than leading to a conventional ending.

While originally developed by Tehkan for arcades, it was ported by Elite Systems for the Amstrad CPC. The CPC conversion was received very positively and is one of the strongest 8-bit versions. Its bright graphics, clear sprites, responsive controls, varied enemy behaviour, and accurate recreation of the arcade scoring system were particular strengths. It does lack continuous in-game music and cannot fully reproduce the arcade machine’s speed or smoothness, but the movement remains precise and the challenge develops fairly. Repetition becomes noticeable once the stage cycle begins again, although the pursuit of perfect bomb sequences and higher scores gave it substantial replay value.