Reviews

Bingo bango, this game has nothing to do with the bomb bouncing Dambusters but it will make you want to thrash a hole on the damn wall in angst and frustration and would certainly be more irrelevantly retro if you slap on a WW2 pilot's hat when playing it. Still, better not, as you'll need a cool head to get through the well designed levels.
This game, a 2012 remake of the authors 1986 machine code experiment Bouncing Bomb, is a smashing platformer that looks like most of the legion of single screen platform games on the Spectrum only better than the vast majority with clean use of colour, background shading for depth and well animated sprites.
Gameplay, it obeys all the usual rules of platforming except you, a bouncing bomb, are forever on the move. You can't stop bouncing and have directional control as well as a button to push for a slightly lower bounce.

There are 20 trappy 'oh not, why the hell did I do that' levels to bounce through, as well a selection of secret levels and hidden surprises. It plays as the classic retro game that it is, but it also features modern stuff including achievements and continues.

Only trouble is I'm surprisingly shit at playing it. I completely lack the patience and required. I can see its not that hard but I just cant rein in my desire to race through each screen and I am expert at the delivering the low bounce when high is needed and vice versa.

Misc Negatives
A bit more sound and music would be a plus.

Misc Positives
Despite being poor at the game it remains addictive, playable and surely have made a commercial impact in the 80s and scored highly in magazine reviews of the day.

This is a very well put together puzzle game. I wanted to give this a higher score because it probably deserves it and fans of these sort of games will enjoy it. But I hate it! The frustration level is at maximum right from the start. I never had the patience for games like this and I have even less patience now.
I'm sure some people will love it but I'm afraid I'm not those people!

A 2012 game that recreates the feel of the best early eighties platformers.
The twist is that you are the 'bouncing bomb' of the title. So controls are simply left, right and un-jump(?).
It plays smoothly, and is presented nicely. The levels are well thought out. There is a continue option, so you can progress, and learn the game without resorting to cheating, albeit with a wimpy score. I found it pretty addictive.
A fine example of modern Spectrum software.

2012 Retroleum (UK)
by Phil Ruston

It's always nice to read other peoples reviews and see how similar they feel to a game like I do.
It's consensual how this sort of games get's so incredibly frustrating, specially at a point (I only got to level 9, after that I had no more nails to bite). Manic Miner was the first game to which I felt like this, and still is, I'm afraid, but it's a game where you can also feel incredibly proud of yourself once you finally past that dreadful impossible level, (sometimes after decades of playing!). BB Redux is no different. Personally I think the game is less harder than, for instance, Mathew Smiths games. It's very well programmed, plays smoothly and it's a step further from the 1986 version. It gets very addictive after a few plays if taken, of course, with a slice of patience. It's a rule. Decathlon required strong fingers (and a bit of cash to substitute malfunction keyboards), Pheenix required speed and good reflexes, well Manic Miner and all it's variants, like BB Redux, requires nerves of steel, patience and a good book from the beloved Dalai Lama about the benefits of Meditation.

4,5 points

I'm pleased this game got a second chance to shine on the archive, but I have to say the original is best. I found the original addicting while this I did not share the same enthusiasm for.