Mega Bomberman: Special 8 Player Demo

Mega Bomberman: Special 8 Player Demo
System(s): Sega Mega Drive
Developer: Factor 5
Planned release date(s): 1994
Genre: Action
Number of players: 1-8
Status of prototype(s): Prototype dumped
Peripheral(s): Team Player
Sound driver: A.U.D.I.O.S. Wave Slave MD

Mega Bomberman: Special 8 Player Demo represents an unreleased Bomberman game for the Sega Mega Drive. The "demo" has a copyright date of 1994, though was not released onto the internet until many years later.

Mega Bomberman: Special 8 Player Demo was created by Factor 5, who were commissioned by Hudson Soft to pitch a proof-of-concept Bomberman game for the system. While it could be considered a prototype of Mega Bomberman, none of the content from this demo made it into the "final" product.

Gameplay

Mega Bomberman: Special 8 Player Demo is a simplistic multiplayer Bomberman game, however differs from the competition as it allows up to eight players to compete at once (through the use of two Team Player adapters). At the time, the TurboGrafx-16 title Bomberman '93 held the record for the number of on-screen players (five).

plants a bomb, and there are multiple item types, with the implied objective of blowing up your seven opponents. However, the game is vastly incomplete - the HUD does not function, each of the eight characters can only be controlled by humans (and all eight players must play) and there is no time limit.

While players can die, there are no triggers or records to state which players have won or lost. As a result, the console must be reset to play another round. Also unlike most other Bomberman games, the player is not limited as to how many bombs they can carry (or how powerful said bombs are).

History

“	We also did a fully playable 8-player Bomberman demo for Hudson Soft on Genesis, using two 4-Player multi-taps. Unfortunately Hudson [ported] the mediocre Bomberman '94 from the PC Engine to Genesis 1:1. But we did end up making BC Kid for them on the Amiga.	„
— Julian Eggebrecht

Legacy

Despite being arguably superior to previous Bomberman games due to its support for up to eight players, Factor 5's work was scrapped in favour of a port of the TurboGrafx-16 game Bomberman '94 which became Mega Bomberman. Mega Bomberman has a multiplayer mode, however it only allows up to four players to compete at once - half the amount seen in this demo.

A special ten-player variant of Bomberman, Hi-Ten Bomberman, had been demonstrated by Hudson Soft in Summer 1993 in Japan, however it never made it to commercial release, running on custom-produced hardware to showcase widescreen HD displays. It would take until Saturn Bomberman in 1996 for ten player Bomberman to be realised in the home.

Hidden content

Main article: Mega Bomberman: Special 8 Player Demo/Hidden content.

Region coding

Main article: Mega Bomberman: Special 8 Player Demo/Region coding.

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
?	CRC32 d41c0d81 MD5 36cfe519c50a76f75664c709d9ae050a SHA-1 6cc338e314533d7e4724715ef0d156f5c3f873f3	1MB	1994				(39 kB) (info)	Page

References

Bomberman games for Sega systems
	Bomberman Special (198x)
	Bomber Man (1988)
	Mega Bomberman (1994) | Mega Bomberman: Special 8 Player Demo (unreleased)
	Saturn Bomberman (XBAND) (1996) | Saturn Bomberman Fight!! (1997) | Bomberman Wars (1998)
	Bomberman Online (2001)