I've been waiting to play this for over a year, and I'm glad Nitrome has finally come out with their first in-house Steam game. Despite its frustrations, Bomb Chicken left an overall positive impression on me. I beat the entire game using a gamepad controller, and it felt fantastic.

(I want to clarify that my current time spent on the game is not truly reflective on how much I played the game - I would say maybe 5 or 6 hours would be the amount it took me to beat the main part as a whole. The rest of that time was going back to find the secrets, and I also left it running in the background a lot to record the music.)

The one thing I really appreciate about this game is how much Nitrome utilizes the bomb mechanic. The game is level based, and a lot of the levels introduce new mechanics that influence the way you'll use your bombs. Sometimes, they're used to help you break blocks or doors and destroy enemies. Other times, they're used as shields to protect you from oncoming hazards or to take the hit from a bullet being fired at you. And of course, bombs replace your chicken's ability to jump, allowing you to cross gaps or reach higher areas. With the quick responsiveness of the controls, the bombs work as both a puzzle and an action platformer mechanic, and both are prominent in a good number of levels.

Many different hazards and enemies are introduced throughout each of the levels, most of which only appear in a certain set and aren't really seen again. This helps to keep things fresh and challenge the way you use the bombs. Towards the end, the game definitely ramps up to being more of a challenging platformer where you need crazy good timing and what feels like near precision with how and when you place your bombs. Some rooms almost made me rage, but upon passing them, man did it ever feel good. For the most part, though, I think the levels had just the right amount of difficulty. The hard sections generally came from trying to collect all the gems and going into the level blind not fully understanding how some of the mechanics or gimmicks in the level worked.

I've completed the main game, but I haven't found all the gems and secrets yet. There's a lot of pretty well hidden secrets so far, and the puzzles within those secrets are quite clever.

The music complements the game very well - I love how there's two different versions of the same track for each level "set". When you start hearing the strings and other instrumentation bits kicking in, you know that you're in for something big. Most of it is dark and sets the mood fine. I suppose it's not music you can really hum; it's more there to add to the atmosphere, but I think it made sense given the overall tone of this game - it feels more serious than say, Gunbrick on mobile.

If I had any issues with the game, I think it's with the lives system. Not that I hate it necessarily - it didn't give me that much trouble in the grand scheme of things - but I really wish you didn't lose lives in the boss levels.

To clarify, each level spans multiple rooms. The game doesn't give you health - you die in one hit from any hazard or enemy - but you'll respawn in the same room you died in, thus losing a life (unless you die in the room you start in). When you lose all lives, you have to start at the very beginning of the level. For a lot of the normal levels, this is fine; it gets me to practice going through some of the tough parts and try to develop a consistent strategy. But for the boss levels, it's just one room you go through to get to said boss. When you die during the battle, you start from the beginning of the fight anyway, so it seems pointless to have your lives drained to zero and then be forced to go through that starting room again. The bosses were already pretty challenging on my first encounter. :P

I also had some issues pertaining to this game's performance, however, I wonder if it's just to do with my computer. Whenever I pause the game for the first time after booting it up, it freezes for quite a long time. Also when I take a screenshot of the game via Steam's F12 feature, the game doesn't recognize my menu navigation commands on the pause screen. For instance, when I took a screenshot, I paused the game and tried to turn down the music. When I went to the volume slider, I was only able to adjust the volume by one increment, and the rest of the buttons just wouldn't respond. On the menu itself too, I was only able to go to the Options, and I couldn't even quit the game. The controls seemed to be responsive when playing the game itself; it was just the user interface that started acting up after I took a screenshot.

So yeah, besides those issues, Bomb Chicken was very hard, but when I beat it, it was so satisfying. I felt like it was worth the price I paid for it, and I'm super excited to receive the physical PS4 version. I'd recommend it if you enjoy platformers with a mix of puzzle challenges and tight timing and navigation. I was really satisfied as a long time fan of Nitrome.

I've been waiting to play this for over a year, and I'm glad Nitrome has finally come out with their first in-house Steam game. Despite its frustrations, Bomb Chicken left an overall positive impression on me. I beat the entire game using a gamepad controller, and it felt fantastic. (I want to clarify that my current time spent on the game is not truly reflective on how much I played the game - I would say maybe 5 or 6 hours would be the amount it took me to beat the main part as a whole. The rest of that time was going back to find the secrets, and I also left it running in the background a lot to record the music.) The one thing I really appreciate about this game is how much Nitrome utilizes the bomb mechanic. The game is level based, and a lot of the levels introduce new mechanics that influence the way you'll use your bombs. Sometimes, they're used to help you break blocks or doors and destroy enemies. Other times, they're used as shields to protect you from oncoming hazards or to take the hit from a bullet being fired at you. And of course, bombs replace your chicken's ability to jump, allowing you to cross gaps or reach higher areas. With the quick responsiveness of the controls, the bombs work as both a puzzle and an action platformer mechanic, and both are prominent in a good number of levels. Many different hazards and enemies are introduced throughout each of the levels, most of which only appear in a certain set and aren't really seen again. This helps to keep things fresh and challenge the way you use the bombs. Towards the end, the game definitely ramps up to being more of a challenging platformer where you need crazy good timing and what feels like near precision with how and when you place your bombs. Some rooms almost made me rage, but upon passing them, man did it ever feel good. For the most part, though, I think the levels had just the right amount of difficulty. The hard sections generally came from trying to collect all the gems and going into the level blind not fully understanding how some of the mechanics or gimmicks in the level worked. I've completed the main game, but I haven't found all the gems and secrets yet. There's a lot of pretty well hidden secrets so far, and the puzzles within those secrets are quite clever. The music complements the game very well - I love how there's two different versions of the same track for each level "set". When you start hearing the strings and other instrumentation bits kicking in, you know that you're in for something big. Most of it is dark and sets the mood fine. I suppose it's not music you can really hum; it's more there to add to the atmosphere, but I think it made sense given the overall tone of this game - it feels more serious than say, Gunbrick on mobile. If I had any issues with the game, I think it's with the lives system. Not that I hate it necessarily - it didn't give me that much trouble in the grand scheme of things - but I really wish you didn't lose lives in the boss levels. To clarify, each level spans multiple rooms. The game doesn't give you health - you die in one hit from any hazard or enemy - but you'll respawn in the same room you died in, thus losing a life (unless you die in the room you start in). When you lose all lives, you have to start at the very beginning of the level. For a lot of the normal levels, this is fine; it gets me to practice going through some of the tough parts and try to develop a consistent strategy. But for the boss levels, it's just one room you go through to get to said boss. When you die during the battle, you start from the beginning of the fight anyway, so it seems pointless to have your lives drained to zero and then be forced to go through that starting room again. The bosses were already pretty challenging on my first encounter. :P I also had some issues pertaining to this game's performance, however, I wonder if it's just to do with my computer. Whenever I pause the game for the first time after booting it up, it freezes for quite a long time. Also when I take a screenshot of the game via Steam's F12 feature, the game doesn't recognize my menu navigation commands on the pause screen. For instance, when I took a screenshot, I paused the game and tried to turn down the music. When I went to the volume slider, I was only able to adjust the volume by one increment, and the rest of the buttons just wouldn't respond. On the menu itself too, I was only able to go to the Options, and I couldn't even quit the game. The controls seemed to be responsive when playing the game itself; it was just the user interface that started acting up after I took a screenshot. So yeah, besides those issues, Bomb Chicken was very hard, but when I beat it, it was so satisfying. I felt like it was worth the price I paid for it, and I'm super excited to receive the physical PS4 version. I'd recommend it if you enjoy platformers with a mix of puzzle challenges and tight timing and navigation. I was really satisfied as a long time fan of Nitrome.