Caromble! PC review — You make me break out

Brick breakers sadly seem like a mostly dead genre now. When new ones do pop up, they tend to be more simplistic, indie affairs, but Caromble!‘s devs apparently didn’t get this memo. This is a fully 3D game that, while clearly very much in the same vein you’d expect from the genre, does a hell of a lot to actually move it forward. There’s a ton of innovative new ideas here, even if the game can be quite frustrating at times due to the simple concept of making a challenging brick breaker, the tedium of various sections, and repetitively having to fight the same boss at the end of every level.

Caromble! is just now entering full release technically, but the game was really mostly done back in November of 2023, only staying in Early Access for business reasons. The 1.0 release really only brings a daily run option that randomly remixes three of the game’s eight challenge levels. This addition won’t be of great interest to the majority of players, but it’s nice to have a bit more content for anyone who wants it. In the event you’re not familiar with brick breaker games, this game’s all about bouncing a ball at various objects to break them, but it’s probably one of the more complicated games in the genre.

The meat of the game is its story mode, which focuses on the player collecting power-ups to complete the titular objective and fight back against a big red guy. The mode has 23 levels that mostly take several minutes each, with the first 20 levels being in blocks of four that all reward you with a new power-up. The goal of each level is simply to break enough objects to activate portals so that you can reach the end and fight the boss, which will complete each level. You get a medal for clearing the level, with an additional two for completing it with enough points or within a certain amount of time.

If that all sounds rather basic, in practice it’s not quite what it seems. Caromble! has a lot of genuine creativity on display regarding its levels and mechanics. There are plenty of times where each portal can only be reached by progressing through an area, meaning that you’ll need to clear the way and sometimes use switches to knock the ball into the next section. The game does this in some very interesting ways, though, as you’ll sometimes find that there are additional paddles to use. At times, you’ll have to use two at once, as they both move simultaneously. On others, you’ll immediately control a different paddle facing a separate direction. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before.

The shapes of the levels can also be variable. Some will practically turn into a side scroller as you have to move the ball through an entire area to the right. One level partially takes place on an elevator as well, while some levels require you to knock the ball back and forth between separate areas. Caromble! truly feels like the biggest leap I’ve seen the genre take in regard to level design. Plus, new twists pop up here and there, such as a level that predominantly takes place in the dark, requiring you to break objects to allow light in the area. Switches may also need to be pressed in certain orders to create ramps, and they’re even timed on occasion. There’s a surprising amount of variety to all the game’s creative uses of its elements.

As a brick breaker, it mostly feels great. You control the paddles with the mouse, and it’s extremely responsive, plus there are thankfully no ridiculous rules that artificially make it harder to keep the ball in play. You can charge the paddle up at any time, which locks it in place, but finishing the charge will allow you to bounce the ball powerfully, demolishing anything in its path. Destroying things will also frequently drop little power-ups that can help or hinder you. They can give you extra lives, shrink or grow the paddle, speed it up, or glue the camera to the paddle’s back to make gameplay trickier.

Then there are the single-use power-ups that sit in the level. Hitting one of these will let you use a power temporarily, such as one that slows down time and lets you see the ball’s trajectory, or another that grants you a sort of launcher that shoots a gravity-manipulating orb to pull down objects. These can be applied in some surprising ways as well, and it’s neat to see what new applications everything has. However, these power-ups can be kind of difficult to use at times. Lining up a challenging arcing shot at a distant target while having to keep a ball bouncing can be downright annoying.

Speaking of which, Caromble!, for all its strengths, is simply very fond of being annoying. There are sections that I’ve spent literal minutes on while waiting for the ball to finally hit its mark, whether this be making it through a narrow opening or hitting switches in the right order. Some sections have solutions that are a bit unclear, or that simply take far too long, too. At one point, you need to hit two switches to cycle between parts of a large ramp, but it’s easy for the ball to hit the wrong one. This took multiple minutes of trial and error before I was finally able to hit both enough times and make it up the ramp.

One aspect that grew older than everything else, though, is how every level ends with you fighting the game’s villain. It’s always the same script for the most part. You get to the end, he shows up, you bounce the ball at him to get rid of his shields, then you finally take him out. If you take too long to finish him off, his shields regenerate. It’s a neat idea, but it’s simply not fun or interesting to have to do this in every single level. It really doesn’t add much to the experience. The game also lacks unique areas and assets for the most part, as every place mostly looks similar, using the same texture sets and the like. Even the majority of breakable objects are the same boxes, crates, and tubes, even if there are some cars and other parts here and there.

The game is also surprisingly difficult. By default, you only have a couple of lives per level. Lose them, and you have to start over from the beginning. Since levels can take nearly ten minutes at times and are made up of multiple gruelling sections, having tiny mistakes force you to start over from the beginning can feel infuriating.

However, the game offers a mercy option for anyone who just wants to play it without worrying about starting levels over. By default, choosing mercy gives you a single extra ball, but you can also switch it on the menu to give you 99. This was a terrific choice, as it allows anyone to play the game, even if they lose lives repeatedly in the process.

Caromble! can get on the nerves, to be certain, but it’s a very well-made, creative brick breaker that has a fair amount of content for anyone who wants to chase down all the medals. If you don’t use mercy balls, some levels might take a significant amount of tries, so even though there are only eight challenge levels (and their daily run remixes), there’s still plenty to sink your teeth into here. I just wish we didn’t have to fight that red guy so many times.

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