Bouncemasters

TheAwakening
Jan 21
3 min read

Overview

Bouncemasters is a launcher minigame inspired by YetiSports, with over 100 million downloads on mobile, where you kick a penguin with a bat and make him bounce over “jumping pads” until he comes to a break. Collecting coins lets you buy upgrades or other bats, which will increase the distance the penguin is launched. A simple and easy game, you can reach the destination within the hour. There are also missions and challenges to complete, and of course, Steam achievements. There are no ads or paywalls (just optional DLCs to support its developers).

Gameplay

To start the game, all you have to do is kick the penguin at the right angle and moment so the kick is always perfect. If you mess up, the distance will be short, but you can always reset the launch as many times as you want. Once the penguin reaches a certain distance, it will start to plummet towards earth (or ice, or sand); this is the part where you can control it by making it bounce against jumping pads. There are some that will be helpful, and others are literal walls that will end the round. You can dive beneath the ice (mind the piranhas) once there’s an opening. There’s no aiming trajectory when bouncing to determine if the penguin will hit a pad or the ground, but it is not difficult to miss it at slower speeds.

Eventually the penguin will stop its track, and the distance covered will be shown. Coins will be awarded based on the distance reached, plus any coin the penguin got during the launch while bouncing, chests, missions, and milestones. With those coins we can upgrade power, bouncing, speed, and bat force, allowing us to cover even more distance. Newer and improved bats can also be bought from the shop. If you obtained a chest, you might get more coins, a random upgrade, or a random bat/skin for the penguin.

Our destination is to reach about 35k ft.; at that point we will complete the game, but we can keep playing and upgrading our stats to compete with other players. Challenges will also become available; some will task us to bounce a set of pads or get a higher combo. The further you get, the higher a spot in the leaderboards of the current season will be saved. Besides that, there’s not a lot to do but keep playing. There are also Steam achievements that differ from challenges or missions, such as speedrunning the game in fewer minutes or failing to launch the penguin 100 times. It will take some time, but you’ll get there eventually.

Audio & Graphics

The volume is so low I had to increase it to hear its music. It's funny how every time I get an amazing kick, the MLG horn sounds. The penguin reacts to everything, and it's also funny to hear him. Graphics remain the same as its mobile version, and no frame rates dropped at any moment.