Bomber

The blast is a cross, so stand diagonal

Every bomb in Bomber explodes in a plus shape (straight up, down, left and right from where it sits) and never on the diagonal. That single fact is the key to staying alive. When you drop a bomb, the safe place to be is one square diagonally off the blast lines, or far enough down a side corridor that the flames peter out before they reach you. New players die to their own bombs constantly because they drop and then run in a straight line the explosion simply follows. Drop, then step around a corner.

Cornering the computer

You win by blowing up every computer bomber, and the reliable way to do that is to cut off its escape. The enemies roam the grid and will run from an obvious bomb, so the tactic is to trap them: bomb them against a wall, a soft block, or into a dead-end where the cross of flame gives them nowhere to dodge. Early on, spend your bombs clearing soft blocks to open up the arena and give yourself escape routes; a cramped map where you cannot run is as dangerous to you as to them. Clear toward the middle rather than along your own wall, too. Central corridors are worth more than edge ones because every trip crosses them, and owning the crossroads means one bomb can threaten two directions at once.

• Always know your exit before the bomb goes down: drop and immediately move to safety.
• Remember flames travel in straight lines only; a diagonal step is often all you need.
• Herd enemies toward walls and corners so the blast leaves them nowhere to run.

Count the fuse, use the pillars

Every bomb pops on the same delay, so learn it once and own it. Drop a bomb and count in your head until it blows. After a few rounds that count becomes an internal clock, and you will know exactly how long you have to clear the blast lines, and exactly when an enemy's corridor is about to turn into a wall of flame. The solid pillars that never burn are the other half of survival. Flame travels in straight lines only, so it cannot bend around a pillar or punch through one; a single square of solid cover between you and the bomb is as good as a mile. Put the two facts together and you get the veteran's habit: drop, slip behind the nearest pillar, wait out the pop, move on. It looks slow. It wins, because the losing pattern in this game is almost always the same one: a player sprinting down a long open lane with their own bomb ticking behind them, discovering that flame is faster than feet.

A trap, walked through

Here is the standard kill, step by step. A computer bomber is poking around a dead-end pocket a few squares deep. Don't lob a bomb into the pocket from range; the enemy will simply walk out while the fuse cooks. Instead, walk up to the mouth of the pocket yourself, drop the bomb right there in the doorway, and step back around the corner you came from. Now the geometry does the work. The only way out runs through the bomb square, the fuse is counting, and the cross of flame will paint the whole corridor. The same idea scales to anywhere on the map. You are never really aiming bombs at enemies; you are aiming them at the squares enemies need. Out in the open the same thinking runs in reverse: drop the bomb at the crossroads an enemy is walking toward, not the square it stands on, and let it stroll into the timer. Cut off the retreat, or salt the destination, and the explosion keeps the appointment for you.

Where the genre started

Bomber owes everything to Bomberman, the Hudson Soft series that began in 1983 and turned bomb-timing into an art form. The NES version spread it around the world, and by 1996 Saturn Bomberman was cramming ten players into one shrinking maze, which is why the series remains a legendary party game. Its multiplayer battles became famous for exactly the tension this version captures: the same weapon that clears your path can just as easily end you. Respect the fuse, watch the cross, and the round is yours.