Maths? As a main selling point for a game? I beg your pardon…
Cal & Bomba takes a bold marketing decision to put its reliance on maths front and centre in what is an intriguing concept. I liken it to the board game Battleships, but with missiles, bombs, and chain reactions. Our hand-drawn duo are busy creating all kinds of potions and bombs to shoot up into the sky and clear the level of enemies. Each level is a grid, with various targets or enemies dotted around the grid. You’ll start a level with a variety of potions that will either increase or decrease the range of your shot. If you have the bomb on the 4th grid row and need to hit a target on the 6th row, then a 50% green potion will add 50% of the original range, helping you reach the 6th row. There are also movement slots to move left or right, depending on the level, too.
Each level plays out like an automation chain. You’ll be provided with a set of possible moves, slots to fill, and a set amount of loops to clear all the targets within. Bombs will hit the exact space it is fired into, but rockets will also blow up squares in the compass directions. Deciding what to use when is key for Cal & Bomba, as very quickly, the game constantly adds new enemies or things to consider. Some enemies move one or two spaces, with some before you move, and some after. Barriers block out parts of the playing area, so you’ll need to think about how to get around the obstruction. This can often be solved by exploiting chain reactions. Many enemies, once shot, will explode in a specific way. One dragon-like creature descends down at a diagonal, bouncing off walls. The cute balloon-riding enemies will either send their balloons upwards or their basket down to the floor. These are just some examples where the enemies can take out others along the way.
There are three worlds with about 180-ish stages to complete, and from early in world two, enemies start to fire back at you. That means you’ll need to get out of the way of their shots. Birds drop rocks, and if they hit your cauldron pot, you fail the level. Knowing when to shoot or move out of the way becomes key to success, and this is where automation loops creep in. You’ll gain access to a loop item that will loop back to the start of whatever actions you’ve put before it. This can be helpful for double moves or being able to make large leaps in range with double potions. It opens up a lot of possibilities for solving each puzzle. Later, pauses are added to allow certain enemies to move whilst you stay still. Again, this helps set up chain reactions and requires a bit of forward planning to make everything click. If anything, whilst maths is the underpinning logic of Cal & Bomba, you’ll actually spend more time programming the moves and making sure you’ve got them in the right order. Automation and programming game fans will be well at home here.
Cal & Bomba is a strange beast. Maths is required – specifically percentages, multiplication, and division. It’s baked into the game’s DNA, and it works incredibly well. Levels are never too convoluted, requiring multiple steps and chain reactions to 3-star each challenge. Crucially, my brain was engaged. Teasing out potential solutions was rewarding and satisfying, especially when chain reactions were involved. When everything aligns, it’s a fireworks show of exploding enemies and targets! The harder levels are saved for a hard mode, but they aren’t unsolvable. Instead of being hard, they add more choices to get it wrong. It’s a game that doesn’t feel like it should work nearly as well as it does. Cal & Bomba is maths edutainment done right.
A review copy of the game was provided by the developer. Cal & Bomba is out on PC.
Higher Plain Games is part of the Higher Plain Network. If you like what I do, please consider supporting me via Patreon for as little as $1/£1 a month. There are additional perks for supporting me, such as behind-the-scenes content and downloads. You can also share the website or use the affiliate buy now links on reviews. Buying credit from CD Keys using my affiliate link means I get a couple of pence per sale. All your support will enable me to produce better content, more often. Thank you.
