Boom!

Boom Boom!

BoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoom!

That, my friend, is the sound of an odd little game called Blast Proximity. The newly formed indie company IdeomotorFX has published a new simple, yet addictive game of Blast Proximity. Anthony Abrams, one of the co-owners of the company has given us a code to download the game and asked us to give our thoughts, a review, per say, for those who want to call it that.  This title is available as download for pretty much any PC/Notebook with an internet connection. It’s not graphically intense so it’s perfect for screwing around on a notebook when you have nothing better to do.

This game is one of those games that is easy to learn but hard to master.  The premise is simple: a bunch of explosives are floating around in a boxed area. By holding down the left mouse button, a circle appears that expands and shrinks as the button is held down.  As soon as you release the mouse button, any explosive balls within the circle become live and will explode after a few seconds. The live explosives will continue to bounce around, triggering any other explosives they hit.  After a short period, the live explosives will no doubt… explode, seeing that is what they are designed to do. Once all the live explosives detonate, the level ends and you get your score. Simple enough right? Actually it’s a lot more difficult than it appears. The placement of the circle is crucial. While you ideally want to release the mouse button when the circle is the largest, you may not get that chance as the explosives are constantly bouncing around.

There are two modes associated with this game.  The first one simply has you detonate a given percentage of explosives over the course of 50 levels.  As you progress through the levels, the percentage decreases as well as the number of explosives in that level.  So, while you may only have to detonate 30% of the explosives by level 40, they are so spread out that it’s rather hard to group a bunch within your circle at once. What makes it even more challenging is that you only get 5 lives through the course of 50 levels. You lose a life when you fail to detonate the required percentage.  When you do detonate the required amount, you can achieve a bronze, silver, or gold trophy per level depending on the percentage of explosives destroyed above the minimum requirement.  I managed to get to level 48, which was rather impressive for me.  However, I was not able to get that high since then, sadly.

The next mode is called the puzzle mode, which I feel should be more aptly labeled as a practice mode.  In this mode you are asked to destroy all of one color of the explosives.  Why I say this is a “practice mode” is because it hones your skills quite nicely for the other mode. If you can manage to detonate all of the specific color, you should have no problem hitting the percentage needed. I have only been able to detonate all of the colors a handful of times. I’ll give you a little taste at how hard this mode is. One time I had detonated all of the explosives except for a single ball, which was of the color that I needed to detonate.  This has definitely happened on more than one occasion as well.  Each mode also comes with an online leaderboard to which you can upload your scores.  I have the highest level on the percentage mode.  Try and get to 50 if you can.

Now, I can’t talk about a game without listing its shortcomings.  First, there is no save mode.  I was quite sad as this is a great pick up and play game to waste the time for a few rounds.  However, the trek to 50 levels can be a bit time consuming, and being able to pick up where I left off would have been nice to have.  Secondly, unfortunately, is the pricing of the game. As much as I love to support indie developers, $10 for a game as simple as this seems like a bit on the high side. I would have definitely be happy for $5.

So to recap for those who are too lazy to read my article:

+ Easy to learn
+ Great Pick up ‘n Play game
+ Perfect for notebook people
+ Highly addictive

- No save mode
- A bit pricey for the simplicity of the game

If you like supporting indie developers, then I would recommend this game.  In any case, there is a demo here for your convenience!