Bomber 95

Bomber 95 is a free multiplayer arcade game that serves as a modern variant of classic Bomberman-style gameplay. Set in a fantasy world with comedic elements, players choose animal-masked contenders like horses, rats, goats, or leopards to engage in explosive death matches. The game supports up to nine players simultaneously through both local and online multiplayer across nine themed maps including cities and caves. Players strategically bomb opponents while collecting power-ups hidden within destroyable boulders on each battlefield.

Bomber 95: A Forgotten Spark in the Dynablaster Legacy

In the vast and ever-expanding universe of video games, certain titles are destined not for the hallowed halls of legend, but for the curious corners of obscurity. They are the footnotes, the asterisks, the games that ask a simple question: what happens when a classic formula is replicated with pure, unadulterated intention, but without the spark of innovation or the polish of a major studio? Bomber 95, a 2018 indie release from developer Dmitry Azarov, is one such artifact. It is a game that embodies the very essence of a clone—a sincere but ultimately hollow homage to Hudson Soft’s iconic Bomberman that serves as a fascinating case study in the challenges of recapturing magic.

Development History & Context

A Solo Vision in a Multiplayer World

The story of Bomber 95 is not one of a large team wrestling with cutting-edge technology or a publisher’s demanding timeline. According to the credits meticulously cataloged on MobyGames, the entire enterprise was the work of a single individual: Dmitry Azarov. He acted as both developer and publisher, a fact that immediately frames the project within the context of the modern indie scene, where digital storefronts like Steam allow solo creators to reach a global audience.

Released on August 4, 2018, the game entered a market vastly different from the one that nurtured the original Bomberman. By 2018, the classic arena bomber genre was no longer a mainstream staple but a niche enjoyed by retro enthusiasts. The most notable contemporary of the time was Super Bomberman R, a high-budget, Konami-sanctioned revival released just a year prior. Azarov’s vision was starkly different. There was no budget for animated cutscenes or licensed characters; the vision was a return to the genre’s bare bones. The technological constraints were self-imposed: to create a functional, accessible, and, most importantly, free version of the game he remembered.

The choice of name, Bomber 95, is itself a curious piece of historical appropriation. It evokes the year 1995, a period many consider part of the golden age of PC gaming and the heyday of the PlayStation, where Bomberman found a passionate audience. However, this is a stylistic choice, a branding effort to signal “retro,” rather than a direct link to any specific title from that year. The game was built not for the rigs of 1995, but for modern Windows systems, with recommended specs calling for a quad-core processor and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

The Void Where a Story Should Be

If one were to analyze the narrative depth of Bomber 95, the review would be exceptionally brief. The official description, as recorded across multiple databases from MobyGames to SteamBase, is unequivocal: “There is no story to the game.” This is a deliberate design choice, aligning it with the pure arcade ethos of the earliest Bomberman titles rather than the later story-driven campaigns of games like Bomberman 64.

Thematic analysis, therefore, must be extracted solely from its aesthetic presentation. Players select from “several contenders with animal masks, like a horse, rat, goat or leopard.” This establishes a tone of simplistic, almost folkloric comedy. The characters are not soldiers or robots, but masked figures in a whimsical, fantasy setting. The goal is not to save the world, but to be the last one standing in a “series of death matches.” The underlying theme is one of primal, chaotic competition—a carnivalesque gladiatorial contest where the only narrative is the one players create through their rivalries and temporary alliances around a keyboard or over the internet. It is a game devoid of pretense, asking for no emotional investment, only momentary engagement.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

The Blueprint, Copied but Not Perfected

The core loop of Bomber 95 is a photocopy of a well-established blueprint. Up to nine players, a figure that notably exceeds the traditional four or eight of most classics, are placed on a grid-based arena littered with destructible boulders and indestructible blocks. The objective is to trap and eliminate opponents with strategically placed bombs while avoiding your own explosions.

The mechanics are faithfully reproduced: players move one tile at a time, drop bombs with a single button, and collect power-ups that spawn from destroyed boulders. These power-ups are the lifeblood of the game, offering increased blast radius, the ability to lay more bombs simultaneously, and presumably other staples like kick and punch abilities. The game boasts “nine unique levels with their own features,” suggesting slight visual and layout variations to differentiate the arenas.

Where Bomber 95 attempts to modernize the formula is in its multiplayer flexibility. It supports a combination of local and online play simultaneously, a feature known as “Shared/Split Screen PvP” and “Online PvP” on its Steam page. This hybrid approach is a commendable ambition, allowing for a scenario where, for instance, two players on a couch could join an online match with seven others. Furthermore, it supports Steam’s Remote Play Together, enabling online multiplayer even for those who only own a local copy.

However, the source material is conspicuously silent on the quality of these systems. There is no mention of matchmaking, server stability, or a robust friends list. In the world of online multiplayer, ambition is nothing without execution. The user interface, from what can be gleaned, is purely functional, designed to get players into a match with minimal fuss. The true flaw in its system, as with many indie multiplayer games, likely resides not in its design but in its player base—or lack thereof. A game built solely on multiplayer thrives on community, and Bomber 95 appears to have faded into obscurity before one could ever form.

World-Building, Art & Sound

Functional Minimalism

The game’s setting is described broadly as “Fantasy,” with maps featuring themes like “a city or a cave.” This suggests a generic medieval aesthetic, a common and safe choice for the genre. The visual perspective is “Diagonal-down,” a classic isometric-like view that provides a clear tactical overview of the arena.

The most distinctive artistic choice is the cast of characters: fighters distinguished solely by animal masks. A horse, a rat, a goat, a leopard—these are simple, easily identifiable avatars designed for quick differentiation in the heat of battle. They are not animated characters with personality but game pieces. The art direction is best described as functional minimalism. It does not strive for the charming pixel art of the SNES era or the sleek 3D models of modern iterations; it strives for clarity above all else.

There is no information available on the sound design, but one can infer its role. The soundtrack likely consists of repetitive, high-energy loops to maintain the arcade pace, while sound effects—the plonk of a bomb being placed, the rapid tic-tic-tic of the fuse, and the crashing boom of the explosion—are undoubtedly designed to be crisp and clear, providing essential audio cues to the player. The overall atmosphere is one of cheerful, mindless carnage, a digital board game come to life.

Reception & Legacy

The Echo of a Whimper

The legacy of Bomber 95 is one of profound silence. The data from MobyGames is telling: an average user score of 3.0 out of 5, but this is based on a single rating with zero written reviews. No critic reviews are logged. On backloggd.com, the game has a handful of users who have logged it as “played” or “backlog,” but again, zero ratings and zero reviews. It is a game that was released, available for free on Steam, and seemingly vanished into the ether without making a discernible ripple.

It was not a commercial failure because it had no commercial ambition; it was free. Its failure, if it can be called that, was a failure to capture cultural attention. It did not influence the industry or pave the way for a new subgenre. Its legacy is that of a digital ghost—a testament to the sheer volume of content on platforms like Steam and the immense difficulty a single developer faces in standing out, even when giving their work away.

It exists now primarily as a database entry, a piece of metadata on gaming archives. It is a game preserved not for its greatness, but for its existence as part of the complete historical record. It is the answer to a trivia question: “What was a free Bomberman clone released in 2018?”

Conclusion

The Verdict of History

Bomber 95 is not a bad game; it is an incomplete experience. It successfully replicates the basic mechanics of a beloved genre and offers them in a free, accessible package with ambitious cross-platform multiplayer options. As a passion project from a single developer, it is an admirable effort.

However, as a piece of interactive entertainment, it is critically lacking. It brings nothing new to the table—no innovative twist, no compelling aesthetic, no reason to choose it over the countless other, better-executed examples of the genre, including the myriad official Bomberman titles available on retro platforms. Its lack of any narrative or stylistic hook, combined with the inherent loneliness of a multiplayer-only game with no players, renders it a hollow shell.

Its place in video game history is firmly in the archives, not the pantheon. It serves as a reminder that while the tools to create and distribute games are more accessible than ever, the qualities that make a game truly resonate—polish, innovation, community, and soul—remain as elusive as ever. Bomber 95 is the blueprint of a classic, assembled with care but without the spark of life that defines a classic itself. It is a fossil, perfectly preserved and utterly inert.