Features

Shoulder-to-shoulder multiplayer for up to 8 players

KarBOOM is a car-combat game with a multiplayer focus. How many gamepads have you got? Because up to 8 players can play against each other with gamepads, and up to 4 players can play on one keyboard (key-jamming permitting). With online gaming now available on consoles, split-screen and shoulder-to-shoulder multiplayer has become very under-appreciated by game critics and reviewers. With two brothers close in age to me, I grew up playing games with or against the people next to me, and that's really where the fun is at.

Online play for up to 48 players

Play KarBOOM online against random people all over the world! Online play requires an "upgraded" account, but for the time being each account is upgraded automatically upon creation. It's the same account you use for the forum.

If you can't decide between online play and offline multiplayer, don't worry: you don't have to choose. Join an online game and have your friends next to you play the same game with gamepads or by sharing your keyboard, just like in offline play.

Bots

Of course, with computer-controlled cars, there's plenty to do when no one one else is around. KarBOOM's bots are very stupid, but relentless. You'll have a hard time trying to beat a bunch of them at a time in a score- or time- limited game. Life- limit, on the other hand, should be no trouble, as long as you don't attract too much attention to yourself.

Managed to get 8 players together, but still want to play against bots? Bots extend the player count to 48 (that is, up to 8 human players between gamepads and keyboard plus as many bots as you want up to 48 cars in total).

Mutators

Mutators change the rules of the game. You can add as many mutators as you want at the same time to really make things hectic!

Weak Spot makes the behinds of all the cars glow red. Why? Because that's their weak spot: ram into another car's behind to make them explode instantly. Make sure you're protecting your behind while you're at it!

Sapoi -- the Fijian name for "Rock, paper, scissors". This'll only work when there are 3 cars playing. A glowing ring around each car indicates the colour and direction of their target. Run into your target and send them out of the ring with ease, but watch out for the other player -- bumping into their car will not end well for you.

Tag is just like the classic schoolyard game. The first player to be knocked out is "it", and it's their job to bump into someone else to make them it instead. Why? Because while you're it, everyone else's scores are going up by one point per second. Or, in life-limit, the "it" player slowly loses lives until they are eliminated from the game!

Boost lets players burst forward to get out of tricky situations, knock other players out, or just show off your moves. Be careful, though. One poorly timed boost could send you out the ring with no hope of return.

Thief makes live-limit mode more competitive, as players aren't just trying to stay alive; they're trying to steal other players' lives! Even if you start with only 1 life each, games last much longer as each knockout takes that player's life and gives it to you. Or on score modes, put all your attention on the leader and knock them out to take down their score even more than usual.

Hold the Flag adds a fresh way to get points and plenty of reason to gang up on one player. Best played with fewer players to get as much space as possible, this mutator adds a flag to the game -- a floating exclamation mark. Run over this flag to pick it up, and get a boost in score for as long as you hold it. But as soon as another car touches yours, it's theirs, so try and keep away from everyone else! In life-limit, holding the flag for more than two seconds will begin to slowly drain lives from other cars until they explode!

King of the Hill adds a bright ring to the map, designating the "hill". In score-based modes, the hill will reward players who spend time in it with extra points. In life-limit mode, cars on the ground outside the ring will be punished every two seconds by the loss of a life. Run out of lives, and your car will explode, eliminating you from the game.

Improve the game

See room for improvement? That's okay: current versions of KarBOOM are in open alpha -- "open" because they're free, and "alpha" because they're not feature-complete. Let me know what you'd like to see added, removed, or improved -- many of the game's features were originally suggested by players of earlier versions.

So give KarBOOM a go! It's free, it's small, and there's no installation required. It's easy to pick up, and heaps of fun. Let me know what features you'd like added to KarBOOM by participating in the forum, or make comments on KarBOOM's IndieDB page.