Dungeons & Bombs [Xbox]

PigeonDev’s Dungeons & Bombs is a puzzle game where you have to rescue the bearded princess. To get to her, you must work your way through each of the rooms, dodging enemies and traps - following her through a total of 50. Movement is limited to a set number of actions per room, dictated by the Princess shown in the bottom right of the screen. Some levels are pretty painless with no enemies or traps blocking your path, giving you a straight run to your bearded love; others are far more frustrating, requiring the use of your much-loved bombs and timing moves through floor spikes.

I did feel a little lost at first when playing, as it doesn’t explain very much to you and expects you to just kinda get it through experimentation, I guess. So if you’re looking to play this soon, you might want to keep in mind that pressing A will drop a bomb (and you get three moves to get out of the horizontal/vertical blast zone before it explodes), and floor spikes will wipe off extra moves each time you walk into one that’s sticking out.

Done in a retro art style with an old CRT-screen overlay, Dungeons & Bombs has a very classic appearance - and this is further enhanced by the nostalgic, chiptune music it is paired with. Each room has its own grid-like appearance, with a variety of blockades, traps and enemies on the way. As mentioned before, some levels are easier than others, the one shown above is one of the more straightforward levels: you’ll probably get it on your first go - and if you don’t then you’ll definitely get it on your second. On the other hand, levels like the one shown below will take a good bit of trial and error, as moving out of sync with the floor spikes rapidly decreases the steps you’ve got left to use (aka, you ain’t gonna make it). Thankfully there’s a quick restart, so that if you make a mistake and mess up your timing, you can quickly hop back to the beginning of the level with ease.

It’s a fairly straightforward puzzle game in the vein of Bomberman, although it definitely gives you a mental workout at times. It doesn’t do much above and beyond this, but if you like puzzle games then this one might just interest you with it’s quirky humour. You can get your hands on Dungeons & Bombs for just £4.19 on the Xbox Store, and you’ll nab yourself a quick 1000G for your gamer score in around an hour, providing you can figure out the puzzles.

In the end, we decided to give Dungeons & Bombs the Collecting Asylum rating of 6/10.

Have you played Dungeons & Bombs yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!

- V x

Thank you to PigeonDev for the Dungeons & Bombs Xbox review code!