A link about bombs

By the way, here’s an excellent essay about game design that I don’t think I’ve contrived an excuse to link yet: “Bomb Sense,” by danbo. (Danbo being the auteur behind Blue Revolver and, uh, apparently Scrandle.) I think about this essay very frequently, not least because of how much I struggled to, like, independently derive the necessity and nature of bomb sense prior to reading it. (I went from “bombs are bad because they’re a mechanic the game doesn’t want you to use” to “bombs are legitimate but I’m fukken bad at em and can’t see how to get good” to “oh, I thought reaction-bombing was the be-all-end-all, but actually 80% of the time bombs are about either perceiving the future or detecting when you’re off-route”.) He’s basically saying that bombs are a kickass mechanic because it feels awesome to use them well and they open up a lot of space for player agency and complex decision-making, but they’re a tough mechanic to build around because they rely on a ton of broad and focused…