Them Bombs!

Overview

Them Bombs is a 2D couch co-op game for 2-4 people, in which one of the players has to defuse a bomb by disarming all of its modules before the timer runs out. However, the player can only properly disarm a module if they are guided by another player(s), whose task is to read the instructions from the bomb defusal manual.

Them Bombs is inspired by a similar game of the same genre, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes.

The game was initially released on mobile devices by Yellow Dot Games in 2017. As of today, it is available on PC (Steam), Android and iOS devices, and Nintendo Switch. It is later coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles.

The story and the objective

The story features a crazy villain named Dr TiNT, who places ticking bombs in random densely-populated areas (eg. a hospital, plane, shopping mall, etc.), and then sends a text message with the location of the bomb to a random person. That person, called Unlikely Hero, is the player. The person reading the defusal manual is called an Expert.

In order to defuse the bomb, the Unlikely Hero and the Expert have to cooperate. That, above all, means verbal communication, as the Expert needs to explain all the steps of solving a module to the Unlikely Hero, and the Unlikely Hero must carefully describe the modules, ask the right questions and correctly interpret the answers.

The bomb

3, 4 or 6 (out of 12) random modules can fit into one bomb, each of them varying in difficulty and type of puzzle to solve. All the modules must be disarmed before the bomb can be successfully defused. Trying to disarm a module without following the instructions results in time penalty, which brings the player closer to detonation.

The player can choose from 3 levels – Beginner, Normal, and Hard. The higher the difficulty level, the less time the player has to defuse the bomb, and the more modules there are to be disarmed. The game also includes Custom mode, which lets the player choose the number of modules, set the defusal time length or choose particular bomb modules.

The manual

The manual contains a detailed description of every module and a list of appendices used for decoding pieces of information. The instructions include both written and visual clues, alongside with tables of reference. Players can adjust font size and choose to read in dark, grey or light modes.

The manual can either be accessed in-game, as one of the game modes, or printed out.