Parogames first release, Parodise, a casual arcade slicer with one hell of a story, completely hooked me from the first time I played it. The amount of work that went into the story, as well as the crazy amount of content, different modes, great graphics, polish, and how insanely fun it was to play made me a fan of the developers very quickly. So when I heard about Parogames second release, Tap the Bomb, I was incredibly excited to check it out.
Tap the Bomb is set-up like Fruit Ninja, except with TtB, you’ll need to avoid the fruit, and tap the bombs. Who woulda thunk it, huh? Bombs and fruits are tossed up, down, and in from the sides of the screen, and it’s up to you to destroy all of the bombs. There are great scoring opportunities, with bonuses for critical hits (perfect hits), multi-tapping (tapping on more than one bomb at a time), and chain combos (tapping on a bomb that explodes, hitting another bomb and making it explode as well). With your points, you’re able to buy upgrades from the shop, which, in turn, will help produce higher scores. There’s also achievements that, when completed, you can cash in for more points to spend in the shop. In the shop, you’re able to increase the amount of points that you’re given for your bonuses, like how many points you’re given on top of your original multi-tap bonus, and so on. There’s also an upgrade for how often rockets fly by on the screen. These rockets cause huge explosions, and if tapped at just the right time, can set off a huge chain combo. The last item in the shop is a health pack, this allows for a one time use health booster, giving you back one of the 3 hearts you’ll start each game with. The prices for items in the shop are not outrageous by any means, and even more surprising; there are NO IAPs. So you won’t have to worry about being nickel and dimed to death just to get on to the GameCenter leaderboards. Speaking of that, there is one GC board, which displays your highest score, along with 11 achievements, all adding to the already high replay value of this high-score based arcade tapper.
Now, with Parogames first title, Parodise, the story was a fairly important aspect of the game, however, here with Tap the Bomb, it’s not so much. There is a ‘Dumpedia’ in the main menu, which gives you the plot of the game, telling you why you’re blowing up these different bombs, background on each of the different bombs, as well as the fruit, the special rocket, and info on some characters from their game, Parodise, and what roll they play in why you’re blowing up bombs. It is a very nice addition to the game, and to the whole original Parodise story, but having a cut-scenes or something like comic strip sequiences after you have a 1,000+ point game, or after maxing out certain upgrades, would have been an awesome addition. I was hoping for more story elements in Tap the Bomb after Parodise had a story for every day that you were there slashing objects, but the lack of it shouldn’t distract from how great this game is.
Also included in Parodise were plenty of different modes that you could unlock while progressing through the game. Sadly, in Tap the Bomb, there is only one mode. This does bring the replay value down a bit, but not too much. Hopefully more gameplay content will be added in future updates. Especially with similar games having 4 or 5 different gameplay modes, it’ll be hard to compete with them, even with the inclusion of a story and ‘Dumpedia’.
The graphics and animations are top-notch, the gameplay is challenging and tons of fun, the store is a great addition, story elements are fantastic, and the scoring system is great. Add on the fact that Tap the Bomb is Universal, and only $0.99, and you’ve got a casual arcade game that’s very easy to recommend. Parogames puts a crazy amount of work and polish into their titles, it’s hard not to want to support them. They listen very carefully to every players comments and impressions, and deserve way more attention than they’ve gotten in the past. Hopefully Tap the Bomb does well in the AppStore, as I’d love to see more games from them in the future. 
