Night Bomber

A bomb floats across the screen, you're hanging from a parachute, and you've got to catch it before someone else does. Or you fail and plummet. Night Bomber from 1988 is arcade simplicity in its purest form — no story, no tutorials, just falling and collecting.

It's built on the Joust principle that players brought over from the older arcades. You and a few other characters drop from various spots on the screen, taking turns falling down while trying to snag falling bombs or other objects. The longer you last on screen, the more points you rack up. Simple rule: you fall, you catch, you boost your score, you fall again. If you pull it off, you advance to the next level.

The controls are stripped down to basics — a few buttons, a few directions, and that's it. The graphics, which you might theoretically call "raw," are just treated as standard here. Blocky sprites at the bottom of the screen, falling objects, modest PC speaker beeps. It all works without frills. The real issue isn't what's missing, but that the game counts on you finding it entertaining if you stick with it for a while — and that doesn't always pay off.

Night Bomber isn't a game people remember as a breakthrough. It wasn't the queen of the arcades, or even well-known, and that's fair. It was one of many attempts by its creators (whoever they specifically were doesn't show up in available sources) to throw players into fast, reflex-based action without heavy logic. In the nineties, when you picked up a PC with DOS, you'd blast through these kinds of things quick — play it, figure out what it's about, move on.

Find it in your browser today and it still works the way it should. It's not a miracle, but when you want ten minutes of quiet arcade fun without much thinking, Night Bomber doesn't say no. Pure game with no trimmings, which by now doesn't present itself as anything special.