The inventive arcade game scene in Japan in 1984 had an impact over in the UK that went on well past the end of the year. Karate Champ inspired The Way of the Exploding Fist, the UK’s bestselling home computer game of 1985. Yie Ar Kung-Fu took things further to properly kick off the fighting game genre, and Imagine’s home computer conversions took the equivalent crown for 1986. Spartan-X/Kung-Fu Master veered off to create the beat-’em-up genre too, and the Commodore 64 version was another 1986 UK #1. Following on from those, it turned out even more old school arcade thrills still had plenty of life in them.

Bomb Jack was the work of a team at Japanese company Tekhan, later renamed Tecmo. Michitaka Tsuruta was the programmer, Tsukasa Masuko the sound designer, and Rie Ishizuka the graphic designer. They were all overseen by Kazutoshi Ueda, who had previously designed 1982’s Mr. Do! for Universal and would later co-found Atlus. Ueda told Beep magazine in 1985 that he saw being thoughtful, analytical and critical as the key qualities for game designers to have, and those are in evidence in Bomb Jack, which makes something new out of the single-screen platformer concept which had already been around for years.

  • Bomb Jack (Tekhan, 1984, Arcade)
  • Bomb Jack (Tekhan, 1984, Arcade)

In Bomb Jack, you have to get the cute superhero character Bomb Jack to collect a set of bombs spread around the screen, avoiding various enemies. There are platforms in different arrangements for each level, but Bomb Jack’s movement is such that he doesn’t strictly need them – indeed, one level doesn’t have any platforms at all. Combining directions with the jump button lets you jump him to different heights, and you can also make him glide by tapping the jump button repeatedly. Programmer Tsuruta later described the process of getting to that glide after starting with a more complex slowly-deflating balloon concept that didn’t feel as good.

The freedom to fling Bomb Jack around the game is a big part of what makes it work so well, with Tsuruta giving the credit to Ueda and his feeling for video games. It has a simultaneous feel of platformer and maze game; as Chris Bourne later put it in Sinclair User, “a sort of unpredictable Chuckie Egg with shades of Pac-Man in freefall”. The resemblance to the latter is reinforced by the occasional power-up that temporarily turns enemies into collectibles alongside the bombs. Bomb Jack also has some pretty deftly designed ways to extend the challenge, including into a race for an optimal score should you so choose. At any time one bomb flashes differently, and you get more points for collecting it. The developers spent a fair amount of time thinking of the best way to order them, getting feedback from other Tekhan staff.

  • Bomb Jack (Tekhan, 1984, Arcade)
  • Bomb Jack (Tekhan, 1984, Arcade)

At the request of Tekhan bosses, Bomb Jack included some fancy graphics too, in the form of big images of sights of the world in the background of each stage. The team was small enough that they shared some duties and sound designer Masuko was responsible for the first level’s sphinx as well as the version of The Beatles’ “Lady Madonna” that plays in the background to some stages. Looking great was less critical to the game’s appeal than its finely tuned gameplay. That was a potential virtue for home computer conversions. 

In late 1985, the Staffordshire-based Elite Systems had staked their future on the success of their conversion of Capcom’s Commando, and it had paid off handsomely enough that it’s unsurprising they looked at other arcade possibilities. Perhaps wary of taking a risk on something quite so hot and so expensive again, they looked further back, and chose Bomb Jack. Computer & Video Games noted in a preview of the game that “Bomb Jack has been around in the arcades for approaching two years and it’s surprising nobody has snapped up the rights from Tekhan before now”.

  • Bomb Jack (Elite, 1986, ZX Spectrum)
  • Bomb Jack (Elite, 1986, ZX Spectrum)

The Spectrum version was the work of Paul Holmes, who had previously worked on Elite hit Frank Bruno’s Boxing, and Andy G. Williams. Holmes did graphics and related programming, while Williams did the gameplay control. “We did some very funky coding to get the game 100% smooth” Holmes later said, “the only way to do the coin op’s game play justice”. He described Bomb Jack as his second favourite of the games he made, after his unreleased conversion of Robotron 2084. They both went on to work in games for decades, later in quality assurance in Holmes’s case, and their credits include the first X-COM game and Forsaken (Williams) and The Beatles: Rock Band and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (Holmes).

Their Spectrum Bomb Jack inevitably didn’t look or sound quite like the arcade version, not least because the screen is in a different orientation. They got the feel very right, though, and is excellent to play as a result. In that sense at least, Chris Bourne in Sinclair User was correct to call it “virtually identical to the original arcade hit”. ZX Computing put it together with Commando in a positive narrative for Elite: “After producing some particularly naff games based on heavily hyped TV licensing deals, Elite finally seem to have struck an untapped vein of enjoyable arcade conversions.” Computer & Video Games likewise wrote that “Elite maintains their crown as kings of the arcade conversion”. 

  • Bomb Jack (Elite, 1986, ZX Spectrum)
  • Bomb Jack (Elite, 1986, ZX Spectrum)

Other reviews picked up a different common theme: “a truly superlative arcade game which offers unbelievable addiction” (Crash) and “a simple idea that’s one hundred per cent addictive” (Rachael Smith in Your Sinclair). In terms of simple ideas, I also found myself thinking that Bomb Jack’s emphasis on vertical movement and collection, with platforms acting as barriers as much as something to stand on, has a certain resemblance to Ultimate’s early Spectrum classic Jetpac. Perhaps that helped it to be a particularly good fit for the computer.

This being 1986, the Spectrum version couldn’t be the only one out and was joined by a Commodore 64 version. Duties on that one included graphics by Rory Green (who also worked on Commando) and programming by Chris Harvey (who had previously worked on both Commando and Airwolf and would go on to another long career in games, with credits including MTV Celebrity Deathmatch and Sonic Colors: Ultimate). Their version was not quite as well received as the Spectrum one.

  • Bomb Jack (Elite, 1986, Commodore 64)
  • Bomb Jack (Elite, 1986, Commodore 64)
  • Bomb Jack (Elite, 1986, Commodore 64)

Mike Pattenden in Commodore User at least said that “I didn’t expect to find myself glued to Bomb Jack over the bank holiday but it did the trick”, but also that “the colours clash”. “At crucial times you’re left squinting to find the odd bomb” he complained, an experience which I shared when it came to the second stage and its red bombs against a red background . Over in Zzap! 64, the reviewers were much harsher. “The graphics and music are awful” wrote Gary Liddon, while Julian Rignall put it that “Bombjack himself has now become Fatjack” and that as a result “the playing area is considerably reduced”. As part of this he made the specific correct point that it was no longer possible to jump over enemies on platforms at the top of the screen, making progress a good deal more fiddly.

Sales of the two versions combined were enough to lift Bomb Jack to the top of the UK combined formats games chart for a week in April 1986. It was then knocked off the top by Elite’s previous hit Commando, thanks to the release of the Amstrad version of that one. That wasn’t the end though, as Bomb Jack‘s appeal lasted long enough to reach #1 for a further week as late as September 1988, when reissued on Elite’s budget label Encore.  That version had “Bestselling Gallup no. 1 coin op conversion” emblazoned on the front cover.

The rerelease got its own reviews across both formats. “The speed at which the game plays is brillo” said Your Sinclair, giving it the same 9/10 score as back in 1986. Crash wrote that it was “still very playable” even though it “hasn’t quite retained the explosive impact”. On the C64, meanwhile, Commodore User wrote of “blocky graphics” but said that it “still retains the playability”. Zzap! 64 scored it 54%, pretty much in line with their original review, but said that  “at two quid, however, it’s not such a bad buy”. That’s a sentiment I’ll be getting to explore a lot more later in the 1980s.

  • Gallup combined formats chart for week ending 19 April 1986, Popular Computing Weekly
  • Gallup combined formats chart for week ending 10 September 1988, Computer & Video Games

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