Game: Kaboomania
Genre: Action, Casual, Indie
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam (Windows), Xbox as PlayStation)
Developer|Publisher: Fancy Factory
Age Rating: EU 7 | US Everyone
Price: US $9.99 | UK 8.99 | EU € 9,99
Release Date: August 12th, 2026
Review code provided with many thanks to Press Engine.
Kaboomania – Retro Vibes
There is something rather lovely about a game that knows exactly what era it wants to belong to. Kaboomania wears its retro credentials proudly, from its colourful pixel art and chunky presentation to its suitably bouncy soundtrack. It feels like it has wandered out of an alternate universe where the Amiga never quite stopped being cool. And I say that as someone who was always slightly jealous of the Amiga crowd.
I never actually owned one myself, but I remember seeing what some of my friends were playing and thinking that this was the machine where all the proper cool games lived. Kaboomania immediately brought some of that feeling back. Unfortunately, while the nostalgia is strong, the actual game underneath it doesn’t quite manage to escape the past.
Welcome to the Amiga… Sort of
Kaboomania drops you into a colourful maze filled with enemies, destructible blocks and an awful lot of things that are apparently begging to be blown up. The basic premise is straightforward. You play as a young character who has somehow been sucked into the world of a computer game and must fight their way through a series of increasingly challenging stages. It’s a suitably silly setup for a game that is clearly more interested in explosions than complicated storytelling.
The presentation is probably where Kaboomania makes its strongest first impression. The game deliberately recreates the look of an old-school 16-bit computer game, using a 128-colour pixel-art aesthetic. It looks vibrant, colourful and wonderfully chunky, with different themed worlds helping to keep the visuals from becoming completely repetitive, such as an alien spaceship, jungle and swamp. There is also an original soundtrack from legendary composer Chris Huelsbeck, which fits the retro aesthetic rather nicely. The combination of colourful graphics and suitably energetic music does a great job of recreating that feeling of booting up an old computer and wondering what weird adventure you’re about to have. For someone with a soft spot for retro games, there is plenty to enjoy here.
Bomber-Who
If you’ve ever played Bomberman, you’ll probably understand Kaboomania within about thirty seconds. You move around a maze, place explosives and then quickly get yourself out of the way before everything goes kaboom. Destructible blocks can hide useful power-ups, while enemies wander around the increasingly large environments trying to ruin your day. It’s a simple formula, but it remains enjoyable. Your basic explosive arsenal can be upgraded throughout the game, allowing you to increase the range of your explosions or carry more dynamite. There are also various additional power-ups that give the game a few more tricks to play with.
Some are fairly familiar, while others are a little more unusual. One particularly useful addition is a spinning weapon that circles around your character and can make short work of nearby enemies. There’s also a temporary speed boost and a teleport ability, which is a bit of a mixed bag. Sometimes it will whisk you away from danger and leave you in a lovely safe position. Other times, it seems determined to teleport you directly into the game’s equivalent of a cupboard with no door, with the only escape being an explosion.
It’s Fun… Until it Isn’t
And this is where I struggled a little with Kaboomania. The basic gameplay is perfectly enjoyable. There is something inherently satisfying about placing dynamite, running away and watching a whole collection of blocks and enemies disappear in an explosion. The problem is that the formula doesn’t really evolve enough to keep me interested for particularly long. There are five themed worlds and a frankly enormous 1,000 levels, so there is certainly no shortage of content. The maps become larger, and the game introduces different enemies and environments as you progress. However, I found myself getting a little tired of the formula before I’d reached the end of my time with it. Once you’ve worked through the different environments, the game begins cycling back through familiar ideas. Smaller levels return, larger levels return, and the basic process of wandering around, destroying blocks and hunting down enemies remains largely unchanged. Perhaps this is partly an age thing. I grew up with games like this, and while I absolutely adore retro games, I’ve also reached the point where I need a little more variety to keep me playing. Kaboomania doesn’t really provide enough of that for me.
Niggles
There were also some technical oddities that I wasn’t expecting. Despite running on modern hardware, I encountered a few glitches during my time with the game. Occasionally, defeating an enemy would cause a strange pause or performance hiccup as the game appeared to load something in. I also encountered enemies that would occasionally spawn in awkward positions within the environment, leaving them effectively unreachable. That could be particularly frustrating because there were situations where the only solution was to leave the level and start again. If you happened to have the spinning power-up available, you could sometimes deal with the problem, but otherwise there wasn’t much you could do. These aren’t necessarily game-breaking problems, but they’re rather strange considering that Kaboomania is deliberately designed to look like an old game. There’s a difference between retro aesthetics and actually experiencing retro-style technical problems!
Multiplayer
Kaboomania does at least offer multiplayer, with support for up to four players in its couch battle mode. And honestly, this feels like the sort of game that could be quite entertaining with a few friends sitting around the same television. There’s something timeless about dropping bombs near your friends and discovering just how quickly friendships can deteriorate. One slightly disappointing omission, however, is the lack of a single-player option against computer-controlled opponents in the battle mode. That feels like a missed opportunity.
Caught Between Two Eras
Ultimately, I think Kaboomania’s biggest problem is also its biggest selling point. It really does feel like an old-school game. For fans of the Amiga and 16-bit era, that might be exactly what you’re looking for. The presentation is lovely, the pixel art is vibrant, and the soundtrack fits beautifully. There is a genuine affection for the period running through the whole thing.
But underneath all that nostalgia is a game that doesn’t do a huge amount to push the maze-bomber formula forward. Kaboomania describes itself as a modern interpretation rather than a clone, and there are certainly some new ideas here. The unusual power-ups, huge maps and enormous number of levels give it plenty of content. But for me, it still feels very much like a game looking backwards rather than forwards. And that’s fine. Not every game needs to reinvent its genre. Sometimes you just want to blow things up, collect some power-ups and enjoy some colourful pixels. For me, though, the nostalgia wasn’t quite enough to carry the experience.
Conclusion: Defused
I don’t dislike Kaboomania. In fact, there are quite a few things about it that I genuinely enjoyed. The presentation is excellent, the retro aesthetic is lovingly recreated, and the basic bombing gameplay remains as satisfying as it has always been. I can absolutely see someone with strong Amiga nostalgia getting a lot more out of this than I did.
But personally, I found the formula started to wear thin fairly quickly. The occasional glitches didn’t help, and when compared with the many games that have explored this particular style of gameplay over the years, Kaboomania doesn’t quite offer enough new ideas to keep me hooked. It feels like a game that has become slightly stuck in the past. And that’s a shame because there is clearly a lot of affection and craftsmanship here.
If you’re a dedicated retro fan looking for something that feels like it has escaped from an old Amiga magazine and landed on your Switch, Kaboomania could be worth a look. If, however, you’re simply looking for a great maze-bomber game without any particular attachment to the era, I suspect you’ll find the nostalgia wears off rather quicker. For me, Kaboomania was a pleasant trip down memory lane, but ultimately one I was quite happy to leave behind.
Final Verdict: I’m Not Sure
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