Mega Bomberman: Special 8-Player-Demo

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. It could be considered a prototype of Mega Bomberman, however none of the content from this demo made it into the “final” product.

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. It is a simplistic multiplayer Bomberman game, however differs from the competition as it allows up to eight players to compete at once. At the time, the TurboGrafx-16 title Bomberman ’93 held the record for the number of on-screen players (five).

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 though 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.