Activision programmer Larry Kaplan originally wanted to port Dennis Koble's Atari coinop game Avalanche to the Atari 2600. But the problem was that in Avalanche all the boulders are lined up at the top which is hard to do with 2600 graphics, hence the shift to the Mad Bomber. David Crane actually coded the overlaid sprites for the Mad Bomber himself. Although Avalanche failed in the arcades, the gameplay is quite similar to Kaboom!, and so the success of Kaboom! helps to vindicate Dennis' efforts in retrospect.
Kaboom! is a 2K game, as all the first Activision releases were. Kaplan is quoted as saying that 2K is all you really need for a 2600 title, and that 4K is extravagant. Kaplan only released one 4K title, Bridge, and he said that he only needed the extra 2K for the AI.
A keychain game of Activision's popular 2600 title Kaboom! was released sometime around 1998. |