Designed by Marcin Żukowski
Main programming, tile graphics and level design by Marcin Żukowski
Main graphics by Bartek Wąsiel
Music, main level design and tile graphics by Łukasz Sychowicz
Compression and music routines by Piotr Fusik
Originally developed for the Atari 8-bit computers, and released to public domain in 2007.
A limited edition physical copy of Yoomp! was released in 2008 through the team's website.
https://yoomp.atari.pl/
PC remake called Yoomp! 4K was developed by Jetset Entertainment in 2007. (download link)
Commodore 64 conversion was written by Zbigniew Ross with music by Michał Brzeski, and published by Psytronik Software and RGCD in 2018.
https://rgcddev.itch.io/yoomp-64
Atari 2600 demake called Zkeep! was written by Krzysztof Kluczek and released to public domain in 2023.
Commodore Amiga conversion was written by zr-games, and released through itch.io in 2024.
https://zr-games.itch.io/amiga-yoomp
Atari ST/STe conversion was developed by Dekadence:
Programming by Peter Halin
Graphics by Terho Tanskanen
Music by Johan Halin
Released as a "pay what you will" through itch.io in 2025.
https://dekadencedemo.itch.io/yoomp
A Commodore Amiga 1200 version called Jump! has been in development since 2019 by Machinery Software, with programming by Kefir/Union and music by XTD/Lamers.
http://www.amigajump.com/
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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS
Things seem to have gone a bit weird on the new-games-for-old-systems front, because it's getting increasingly difficult to come across new games that would be even potentially interesting to do comparisons of, since the most obvious candidates seem to suffer from too much of balanced quality. So, for this year's New Game Of The Year comparison, I decided to dig up a game that is already considered a classic on the 8-bit Atari computers, since Yoomp! was originally released 18 years ago. The reason for the sudden need for a comparison is, because in the last few years, there have been a few conversions/remakes/demakes/whatever of the game, that make it a good game to finally be featured on the blog in this context.
And with this slightly more special entry to end this year, I wish you all a very happy Christmastime (or at least, what's left of it), and the bestest of new years, and further announce that I will be taking time off from the blog at least until February, if not further.
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HISTORY, DESCRIPTION & REVIEW
All the necessary history of the development of the original Atari Yoomp! is available to read at the game's official website. In short, the team were originally trying to make an 8-bit version of Bullfrog's The Tube, but due to the 8-bit Atari's constraints, decided to make a cylindrical 3D rendition of D. Johannsen's 1986 game Jump! instead - which itself is basically a type-in version of Gremlin's Bounder. If they had been able to make the game more like The Tube, there would have been shooting involved, among other things.
Anyway, what Yoomp! is all about is, you need to get your bouncing ball through all the tunnels by reaching the finishing line and avoiding empty areas in the tubes, and preferably jumping onto different slabs that might give you some effect or another, be it visual or physical, and collect tons of points while at it. Nothing more to it, really, but it's an addicting concept, and increasingly challenging, with a nicely low difficulty curve to keep the 21 levels run interesting enough.
When the finished product was released in late 2007, it won the ABBUC Software Contest, and the game was updated slightly for a very limited physical release in 2008. Reviewers have since compared Yoomp! to Trailblazer and its sequel, Cosmic Causeway, Impossaball, and there have even been mentions of Master of the Lamps and Spindizzy as possible inspirations. Well, one thing is for sure: it became the best-known Atari 400/800 game since the 80's, and it is even featured in The400 Mini console, published last year, as the only modern Atari game.
I have been playing the original Atari 400/800 version of Yoomp! on and off for a while now, probably from around the time it was originally released, but I have never actually gotten addicted to it. The problem is, it's too much like all the games mentioned earlier, and it doesn't actually bring all that much new to the table, at least when it comes to gameplay. Bouncing around these cylindrical tunnels does become a bit tiresome after four or five levels, even if the difficulty level does eventually rise enough to make things more hectic. Essentially, Yoomp! is an impressive gimmick with good playability, but whether it actually has the longevity of the Atari game of old is less certain. It is, however, a perfect example of how to raise interest for a platform that has been out of the spotlight for a couple of decades, and for that reason, it fully deserves its place in the Atari history books.
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PLAYABILITY
To start playing Yoomp!, all you really need to know is how to launch it on any particular platform, which are more or less the usual thing for anyone who ever played with any of the machines this game was made for; and that the controls are just left, right and fire button. The ball in Yoomp! bounces around at a steady pace, one block forward at a time, and you can move the ball in the tube clockwise (left) or counter-clockwise (right). The fire button is only really used for activating things in the menu and the screen between levels.
Originally, Yoomp! was developed with two control methods in mind - a relative one, in which you just move the ball clockwise (left) and counter-clockwise (right), and an absolute one, in which you move left and right, as well as up and down, depending on your location on the tube. An early demo version exists and is available for download, where these control methods exist as options, and the demo game features three short levels, no sounds and relatively little of graphics. In the end, as you already know, only the relative control method was kept in, and all for the better so.
Now, I have to begin this comparison with a rather unfortunate notification: the 2007 PC remake/demake, Yoomp! 4k, was caught in my virus scanner, and was moved to quarantine, so I won't be taking the risk of un-quarantining it for the sake of doing this comparison, even if it is a false positive, because I can't say for sure. Also unfortunately, I was unable to register to pouët.net to inform other users that this game might have caught a virus, so I'm hoping one of you readers will perform the duty for me. Anyway, that still leaves me with five completed versions of the game, and a demo of an unfinished one.
Most of the tubes are made of slabs that have either no effect, have holes in them, or are just non-existent. Sometimes, entering the smaller holes can take you to the opposite side of the tube, but others are just holes that drop you off the tube. Every now and then, you will come across various types of effect slabs that can make the graphics go lighter or darker (+ and -), cause a minor earthquake (circle within a block), make you jump over one block (up arrow), cause a strobe effect (rectangular item), stop the progress (T), or make you go sideways by force (<>); and then there are oddly shaped slabs that only have different points values - including the Ü slabs at the end of each tube. Some of these slabs - and more - start appearing later on in the game, while others appear already in the first tube, which, of course, is fun, as you keep getting new surprises as you bounce along.
As I start digging into the other versions of the game, though, I notice that not all these features are implemented in all versions, and if they are, some of the effect slabs look a bit different. In the C64 version, which is close enough to the original in many ways, you will find the Ü slabs missing from the level ends, only to have some different slabs in their place. A completely new slab was introduced to the C64 version, which looks like a bottle, and makes your ball act drunk for a brief period of time upon hitting it, and you encounter this bottle slab in the third level for the first time. The same redesign was used in the first (and currently only finished) Amiga version, and both versions use fairly redesigned levels, as well, so scores would be practically incompatible with the ATARI original. Both of the COMMODORE versions feature more levels than the original, with 23 featured in the C64 version, and 27 in the AMIGA version. Since the C64 version was, also released on a cartridge, in addition to the disk release, it can be played without loading times, which makes the AMIGA version somewhat painful to endure.
The most recently published ATARI ST version follows the original 8-bit Atari version's level design, pretty much to the dot, as far as I can tell, even to the point of actually naming the levels similarly to the original 8-bit version, whereas in the C64 and AMIGA versions the levels were unnamed. This offers a nice throwback into the old Atari camp vs Commodore camp thought thing, even if it doesn't make that much of a difference in terms of pure playability. Of course, if faithfulness is what you're after, and enjoy the original levels more than the COMMODORE levels, then the ST version might be more your kind of a thing, and it helps quite a bit, that the loading times in the ST version are practically nil. A nice bonus for the 16-bit version is a "Rush" mode, which allows you to play the entire game in one sitting, all 21 levels linked together.
Quite understandably, the ATARI 2600 version "Zkeep!" is a very different beast, and a demake in all manners possible, while still retaining something of the wonder from the original. Through necessity, the A2600 version has opted for the tubic tunnel revolving around the ball instead of the ball moving within the tube, and most of the special slabs have been dropped, because the A2600's graphical capabilities could not make it possible to offer such details and many effects. Of course, the number of levels has also been reduced to five, and can be played in three speed settings, but they are all much longer than in the official versions of Yoomp!, and you only have one life to lose before Game Over, so I suppose that only makes Zkeep! even more special. All in all, it really shouldn't even be considered as a straight port, but rather a budget tribute to Yoomp!, albeit a very accomplished one for the platform.
So far, the last Yoomp! clone I have become aware of that has been in the making, and seems like it might be even finished soon(ish), is the game "Jump!", which requires at least an AMIGA 1200 14 MHz, and at least 6MB of fast RAM. The demo is available for download on the game's website at www.amigajump.com, and you can tell by even the briefest glimpse, that this is Yoomp! with a supercharger. One cylinder of the tube you're jumping in comprises of 16 slabs instead of eight, and the cylinders can turn while you're approaching them, but most of the effect slabs are pretty much the same as they were in the original, as far as I can tell. Who knows, what the final release version will feature, but based on what has been updated on the game's website, the last we know is that the game has 39 levels, not just 21 or so. Upon release, it is said that the game will cost 29 euros just for the digital copy, and 45 euros for a boxed version, not including postage, and will ship on a CD-ROM or a USB device, which will help with getting the game easier to play than in its demo form, which for non-A1200 users is a major headache to get working. All things considered, I'm not exactly sure it's worth the bother. As it is now, it's not getting a scoring in this comparison.
Instead, we have to focus on what's important in the four (or five) available versions. Because the 3D graphics make such an enormous part of how the game plays, because of how each machine is able to handle the 3D scrolling, the playability results are necessarily linked to the graphical results. Obviously, the A2600 version is the most impossible one of the lot to consider as even close to being an equal game against the others, so any score given to it should be taken based on its self-worth. The other four will get their scores on the usual basis, but only when we get to the end, as has been the tradition with these newer games.
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GRAPHICS
What made the original ATARI 400/800 version of Yoomp! such a special game for me upon first coming across it, was its graphical quality, which felt like this was what happens when a bunch of top demo scene people get together and make a game instead of tinker with visual effects for the sake of getting new ground broken and then forgotten after a few weeks - months, if lucky. Already the title screen looked to me, like it was one of those latter-day crack intros instead of a classic 80's title screen.
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| Title screens, left to right: Atari 400/800, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST |
Both the C64 and AMIGA versions use the same logo between themselves, which looks like a mash-up between the title credits from the 1978 Superman movie, and something you might have seen in more modern games, like Assembloids. The menu texts use a different font in the two versions, and the credits are shown in a small scroller at the bottom in the C64 version, while the AMIGA version has a separate page for them. Generally speaking, though, the AMIGA version's title screen looks about 20 years nicer than the C64 one, which looks like someone just scanned a pre-rendered logo straight into the C64 memory, and tried to make it look adequate.
Perhaps a bit funnily, I think the ATARI ST title screen looks the least impressive, particularly when you consider the platform itself. The greyscale gradient on the new logo is pretty enough, and the textures are very fine, but the real problem is the lack of actual style on the logo, and also a lack of animation on the screen. It does its job well enough, but the first impressions are not particularly epic.
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| Level cards, left to right: Atari 400/800, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST |
Starting any new level will, at the very least, give you information on the level number. The C64 version offers the least information, with only that, and a "Get Ready" message under it. The AMIGA version features two bouncing balls - as they appear during loading screens - and the level password in addition. The original 8-BIT ATARI version gives us a colourful set of text, featuring the level number, title, passcode, number of lives left and a message to "Press fire to Yoomp". Again, the ATARI ST version goes the way of an underachiever, with the level number, title and score accompanied by "Press FIRE to start!", all in a small font and single colour.
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| Early Atari work-in-progress version screenshots. |
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| In-game screenshots from the Atari 400/800 version. |
This is what we got. But you can see, when the original ATARI 400/800 version was designed, some of the design choices were already clear in the work-in-progress version, such as the general look of the slabs in the tube, and the general colour of the ball you control for each level, because it certainly had to be different for every level. For the finished version, the ball was given a classic beach ball kind of a look with adjacent quarters being a different shade of the same colour; each tube was given a surrounding ornamentation using the level's colour scheme; and an info panel was set at the bottom of the screen, featuring the number of lives, the current score, the amount of manual jumps left to use, and a line that showed your current position in the level. With all these more obvious features, some of the slabs in the game would make the screen shake or give a strobe effect, or make the screen lighter or darker. Although the game looks deviously simplistic, there is actually quite a lot of trickery behind it.
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| In-game screenshots from the Commodore 64 version. |
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| In-game screenshots from the Commodore Amiga version. |
What the C64 version couldn't do, the AMIGA Yoomp! delivered and even upgraded the game in some ways. Most obviously, the surrounding ornament graphics now take over the entire screen, and incorporates the info bits within the extraordinarily designed backgrounds. Still, you get no distance line, but the other bits have been given their own slots in somewhat surprising ways. The tube area itself looks fairly similar to the ATARI original, with one glaring difference: the ball is now consistently white-and-red, probably designed so deliberately to go with the Amiga theme. The strobe effects have been altered to feature different colours, but otherwise, the effects are as expected.
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| In-game screenshots from the Atari ST version. |
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| Game Over screens, left to right: Atari 400/800, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST. |
With one glaring exception, the Game Over screens look pretty much the same as the other text screens you saw earlier. Only the AMIGA version has the Game Over message animated into the tube, and made entirely of those white-and-red balls. For that alone, this bunch of screenshots was worth putting together.
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| Screenshots from Atari 2600's Zkeep! |
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| Promotional screenshots from Jump for Amiga 1200, still work-in-progress. |
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SOUNDS
Here's a funny one, because Yoomp!'s soundtrack was designed with the ball's bouncing as the tempo, so that's the main focus - you don't really even need any sound effects for the game, even if there were some available. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The ATARI 400/800 version features, as far as I have been able to find, five different tracks of music: an ominous but somewhat funky title screen tune, a fast get ready tune with a similar funky beat, a mid-tempo in-game tune with the ball's bouncing going at the exact same tempo, a "level completed"
tune that's similar to the title screen tune, and a Game Over tune, which seems to be the only one without a drum beat. All of these tunes loop around after however long they are, with the in-game tune being obviously the longest of the lot. As you might already assume, all the sound effects come from any contact the ball has with any of the slabs in the tube, so the sound effects are played in tempo. There are as many different sound effects as there are different slabs to bounce on, although there are several "normal" slabs, so their sound effects are regular bounces.
In the C64 version, you can only listen to either music or sound effects, which can be toggled from the main menu screen. The sound effects feel a bit bulky, to be honest, which makes music the preferable option. The C64 soundtrack is a bit different perhaps in size and style compared to the ATARI original, and while you don't get all the text screen music, there are two level tunes that play in alternating turns. There is a jingle for completing a level, as well as a very short Game Over ditty, and of course the title screen tune, so the amount of tunes is the same. Michal Brzeski and MCH's soundtrack is very well executed, with plenty of modern SID tricks in use, but rather samey all over the few different tunes, which make it difficult to tell them apart at first. In any case, the soundtrack is best listened to on a 8580 SID chip.
Naturally, the AMIGA version has the advantage of 16-bit architecture, more memory and more storage, and as all Amiga music is known to be more or less sample-based, it is only to be expected, that the soundtrack for this version feels more 90's than the previous versions' soundtracks. At least, the title menu gives us a fairly 90's style tune, which sounds very little like anything from the previous two versions. But then you will notice, the menu actually gives you three optional in-game soundtracks and a no-music option, if you would rather only listen to sound effects. The three soundtracks are "original", apparently an Amiga-original soundtrack of two almost imperceptibly similar alternating tunes for every other level (similarly to the ones in the C64 version), a "remix" soundtrack of the same two tunes, and an "8-bit" soundtrack featuring the original 8-bit ATARI music. The sound effects are not actually that much different from the 8-bit versions, but the amount of variety is very welcome indeed, even though the music in all three modes is similar enough.
The ATARI ST version starts off with a new version of the same title tune as is heard in the 8-bit ATARI original, but only a much more drum and bass oriented version with a faster tempo, but less focus on the melody. However, all the tunes in this version, which are otherwise taken straight from the 8-bit ATARI version, use the same tempo for all tracks, and as such, the game speed is actually slower than in the 8-bit original. With a less inventive use of the ST's sound chip, though, it all feels a bit flat overall compared to pretty much all the other previous versions, and the sound effects feel like they fall too much in the background.
Remarkably, ATARI 2600's Zkeep! features a set of three tunes, which are selectable from the title screen menu. By selecting one of the tunes, you also select the game speed due to each track's tempo. There are no sound effects, apart from the white noise played upon Game Over, but the music is of a caliber of quality that I have never heard before on an ATARI 2600 game, as it all sounds surprisingly close to what was made for the original.
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FULL SCORES + VIDEO + AFTERWORDS
Yoomp! is a difficult, and somewhat unfair game to score because of its reliance on each platform's architecture and the creators' abilities to work around their intricacies, which I cannot really make all that much of comment on, because I usually focus on the actual games and how they are played. This time, I'm forced to base my scores on instinct and personal taste, rather than each version's own value, so this is what you get:
I'm not entirely sure if all of these scores make too much of sense, but it's just how I feel about them all right now, after playing these versions extensively for the past few weeks. As an attempt at giving you some idea of what I've been talking about here, I compiled a video of these five versions here:
Yoomp! is considered a modern classic for the 8-bit Atari computers for a good reason, and I wouldn't be surprised, if more versions would be coming out for different platforms in the next few upcoming years, including the Amiga 1200 version I haven't scored here. Just as an example, the closest thing to a Spectrum version that seems to be available at the moment is a game called Roger The Pangolin in 2020 Knurled Tour, which feels more like a mixture of Trailblazer and Roadwars than Bullfrog's Tube, but I feel like there is a possibility of an actual Yoomp! clone for the Spectrum lurking around the corner, and who knows to what other platforms.
That concludes the year 2025, and as I said in the beginning, that means I'll be taking some time off from everything blog-related. Thanks for reading; see you some time next year!
One feature of the original that you may have missed is that the audio supports dual POKEY mod and as the ball moves around the tube, the sfx gradually change their position from left to right.
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