When the Bomb Goes Off

By: Derek Yu

On: April 27th, 2009

Tom Sennett Appreciation Week continues: It’s amazing what Tom Sennett can do with stick figures and some old timey music! In WarioWare the humor revolved around figuring out how to win in each microgame – When the Bomb Goes Off adds a very humanist touch to the basic concept.

Somehow I imagine that when the bomb does go off, I’ll be trying to finish a post for TIGSource!

Posted in Browser Games, Casual, Platformers | Tags: TomSennett

ChevyRay

A favorite. Super charming game <3
alspal

Woot, new news!
Konkur

Kinda like WarioWare. But without text hints. And with a bomb.
gsm

Most of the minigames in this are obvious/traditional game goals, with a thin layer of poignancy added by the premise that everyone involved will die moments later. Where the game truly shines are in the puzzles with unclear goals, requiring the player to stop and think why the player character is not “ready to die” yet. The “very blurry” level is the best example of this.
magallanes

but sadly the graphics are meh, and it is not clear to known if you win or not,for example: a photo of a red explosion is a bad but a photo of a green explosion is good.
gsm

I didn’t mind the ambiguity of the colored explosions, since there’s little difference between outcomes. The only characters who cared about the events of the last few seconds are gone; that small personal story was theirs and theirs alone. It’s almost a meditation on the transience of virtual worlds.
Cheater

I am befuddled on how a victory condition that is clearly boolean, delivered through easily distinguishable images can be unclear.

You either win (green) or not (red). I don’t think it’s physically possible for it to be more clear.
Upriser

And yet none of it matters in the end, which is really what makes it all so poignant. Agreed that it is the irrelevance of each such simple action when we know it doesn’t matter, and yet we try to do something. We don’t just wait. Simple point, awesomely presented.
Josh

I like how “red bomb” versus “green bomb” makes us discuss something that would not even be an issue if it were “red X” versus “green check”.