Caromble! Preview

Break bricks and fight aliens in the latest on the short list of brick-break games, Caromble! Simple to learn, difficult to master. Bounce curve balls with precise movements and charge up for power shots by knowing when to charge and when to move. Take a look at the game in its Early Access form to see if this is one you want to try.

Caromble! Preview

Introduction

The brick-break genre is one that is often overlooked, and could be argued that is hanging on by a thread. It was never that popular to begin with, never seeing many entries in the genre. However, brick-break games can be both challenging and relaxing. A means to either unwind with the hypnotic moving the pad back and forth, or it can be a way to challenge your understanding of trajectory and geometry, using your limited control to enact greater control over a ball that goes where it wants. It's surprising it hasn't made more success on the mobile market; its simple controls make it a good candidate for a platform with very limited controllability. So it was that I was surprised and delighted to see that there was a new game in the brick-break genre, Caromble!


Caromble! is currently in Early Access, and has been for two years, while being in development for nearly eight. It has been worked on by Crimson Owl Studios, a five-man team who have worked on the game every Friday since 2009. It's a game made for fun, though I'm sure they'd appreciate some profit too. Games made for fun, when done so competently, tend to be, well, fun. That's what Caromble! is, fun. There's not much to say at the moment, as the game is only half finished, in terms of content, so I'll save the rest for the upcoming sections.

Caromble! is in Early Access and available on Steam for $12.99.

Story

Caromble! has the most basic story there is in video games: aliens have invaded and you want to stop them from causing any more damage. The plot is told without words, only images, which helps with the game's overall accessibility. There's nothing in the way of story progression throughout the current chapters. You defeat the bosses of the chapter, the last of which poses the biggest challenge yet, and then you move onto the next chapter. Presumably, when the game ships, there will at least be a final cutscene showing the nasty red aliens running back to whatever miserable rock they came from. Even better would be some snippets of story between chapters.

Caromble! Preview - The bumper is piloted by two sleeping, sentient, dew drops, I don't know.

Any bonuses to the story's presentation would simply be bonuses, and you can't discount this game for lacking in plot. The genre it's in is not known for telling stories. The plot of Caromble! is a framing device, a means to give the player reason to go to these industrial platforms and break tons of shipping containers before taking on a boss.

Gameplay

Alright, now we can talk about what really matters in Caromble!: the gameplay. For the uninitiated, brick-break games are about, well, breaking bricks. There is a ball on screen, bouncing around off walls, bricks, and your bumper. There's no controlling the ball directly, not without some power-up, you simply have to keep it from getting past you; that's where your bumper comes in. Like in most brick-break games, in Caromble! you control a bumper, which in this case is never really explained nor does it really need to be. The bumper can only move left and right, and you do so with either an analog stick or the mouse. Precision movement can be critical when the ball is moving quickly, so the mouse is the better bet as it provides better control.

The goal of each stage is to break the "bricks." In Caromble!, these bricks take the forms of industrial objects, such as shipping containers, pipes, barrels, etc. Once enough bricks have been broken, the exit to the next stage will open up. As you progress, levels will start asking more of you, and destroying bricks alone won't be enough. You may need to curve the ball to hit specific targets. Sometimes bricks won't be neatly organized and you'll have to hit them as they come down a conveyor belt. Sometimes you'll need to knock down some supports to topple a tower and bring down lots more bricks for you to destroy!

Caromble! Preview - A familiar set up for a brick-break game, but not one you'll see often in this game.

When you destroy a brick, it drops a small colored pixel, which are your points. You will need to use your bumper to catch the falling pixel in order to get said points. Miss the pixel, and that brick awarded you nothing other than it's no longer in your way. You will need to keep that bumper moving to catch the points and keep that ball bouncing. Once the ball hits a brick, it goes off in the other direction, so where your bumper will be in order to catch the pixel likely won't be where it needs to be to catch the ball once it gets back. Some points have to be sacrificed in order to keep the ball in play.

Different bricks don't award different points, but different breaks do. If you simply have the ball bounce off a wall or your bumper and into the brick, that's one point. Charge up your shot and that's three.  Curve the ball and that's five. Charging and curving are two skills that will take some practice in order to execute correctly and consistently.  You hold down a button to charge, building up a meter, but while you do you cannot move the bumper. When you release, the meter depletes over time, rather than all at once. What this means is that you can sit there and charge, and as the ball is coming back, release it so you can move quickly to deflect, then resume charging. When charged, the ball will rocket away, blasting though all bricks in its path until it hits a wall.

Caromble! Preview - Sometimes the bricks are out of reach, and you'll have to knock them loose before you can destroy them.

Curving is easier to execute, once you know how to do it, but harder to execute effectively. Get ready to call up Hanzo for some tutoring sessions, because brick-break games are all about geometry. You could certainly just deflect the ball whenever it comes near, and give it no more thought than that. However, if you do this, you leave it up to luck if you'll hit anything, and later levels will have specific corners or slots you have to go into. By quickly swinging your bumper toward the ball in a direction, you will send the ball off in a curve in the other direction. The momentum of your bumper as it's coming in to deflect, as well as where the ball hits the bumper, affects the direction of the ball. Mastering this method, along with charging and knowing when to let points go and when not to, will be key to getting all the trophies in the game.

In addition to dropping points, random bricks will drop power-ups and power-downs. It's not enough to just mindlessly swing your bumper to whatever is falling from above, you have to be aware of those power-downs and avoid touching those if you can. There are also special power-ups that are unlocked after completing a chapter, and are available on specific stages.

Caromble! Preview - Each level has its own set of trophies and high scores to best.

Right now, there are 3 chapters in the game, with a plan for the finished product to have 6. Each chapter contains 4 levels, and each level has 3 stages, including the boss at the end of each level. This means that right now there are 36 boards you will have to clear, with 72 being available upon release. The game also comes with five difficulty tiers and three medals you can earn for each level. All in all, Caromble! will either be a short romp or a long investment, depending on how much you want to play.

The bumper controls smoothly and while controlling the ball's path can be tricky, it never feels impossible. The falling points are too simple and small. It's easy to not seen them in the middle of anything, so hopefully the developers can see their way to making them a bit more noticeable.

Graphics/Audio

The game has a look that is similar to what you would see in Borderlands. Everything is distinctly shaded and have thick black lines. The world looks almost like it's constructed out of folded cardboard, which is not a bad thing. What is a bad thing is the repetition of the setting.

Caromble! Preview - Though the setting will change slightly, you'll still be dealing with pipes and crates.
In Caromble!, you'll be bouncing your ball off shipping containers, pipes, and other factory items that take the place of a simple colored brick. This is a neat way to add "bricks" to the "board" while putting the player within a distinct setting. However, after the first chapter, the setting continues. It would have been far preferable for each chapter to have a different environment to play around in. It's understandable why the developers might want to limit how many different environments they have to design, of course, given the part-time approach they have to making the game. Regardless of their reasons, the result is still disappointing.

The music is somewhat relaxing. The tracks don't create tension or excitement, they simply add appropriate ambiance. If you're just playing the game to relax, the music is something you can easily chill out to. If you're playing to get the high score, the music isn't intrusive enough to be distracting. The sounds of bricks breaking and balls bouncing are fitting, but not terribly satisfying. The satisfaction of breaking bricks should be pleasing both in the visuals and in the audio.

Conclusion

It's nice to see the brick-break genre get some love. The genre has never been at risk of becoming stale from overuse, but nor has it ever seen a huge surge of popularity thanks to a few titles. Though it's unlikely Caromble! will be the prophetic brick-break game to lead the others out of the darkness and into the mainstream, it will serve as a fun title for fans of the genre.

Caromble! is a cute game with well polished core gameplay. If the physics of the ball bouncing felt off, the whole thing wouldn't work. Thankfully, CrimsonOwl Studios put the work in to make sure that it felt smooth and responsive.  There aren't a lot of extra features beyond the core gameplay, and it doesn't sound like there are many planned. There's no multiplayer, but that's a consequence of the genre, not the designers. Though I have always wondered what multiplayer brick-break would look like. Two bumpers on one side, competing to hit the ball first and have it hit bricks in their name, or one on either side, trying to get more points and detract from the other player's by getting the ball past their bumper. It's nice to dream.

Caromble! Preview - Crimson Owl has been on a long journey to this point, and I'd say it was worth it.
Talking about price can be very subjective, especially when it comes to indie games. The usual argument is "why does it cost $X when it's only Y hours long?" The best standard to use is the movie ticket one. Your average ticket to an average 2 hour movie will run you $10. So, by that logic, a game should be worth $5 for every hour. Right now, in Early Access, Caromble! is said to give the player 2-3 hours, plus more if they go for all the trophies. With a $12.99 price tag, this is either just above or just below the target range, depending on your completion time. 

At the end of the day, the real value of a game is with how much fun you had with it. It mixes things up with each stage, having you do more than just destroy bricks every time. These extra puzzles and challenges add more substance to the overall gameplay. Fans of brick-break will find a nice, simple, entry into the genre and shouldn't shy away from the price. Those who haven't tried out the genre, this is a great entry point. If nothing else, the price tag goes to help five guys who are into game design to have fun.

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