You've probably never heard of the obscure Famicom title "Flying Hero". It's a 1989 release that never went outside of Japan, and in it the player fights fires by bouncing one fire fighter up into the air on a blanket, where he grabs people out of windows and tries to put the fire out at the same time. It borrows the basic mechanic of Breakout and mixes it up just a little bit. Bouncy Fire Fighters is a cute little remake of Flying Hero, and it's a lot of fun. Of course, the original featured tiny 8-bit pixel art, whereas in this one the female fire victims put the bouncy in the title, if you know what I mean. Time marches on.

Use either the mouse or the [arrow] keys to move your blanket-carrying firefighters back and forth, and launch the brave hero into the air with [space] or a mouse click. As he flies by windows, he'll rescue any victims screaming for help inside, or make progress at putting the fire out. But what goes up must come down, and you'd better have the blanket ready to catch him when he does, or else you'll lose a life. Twelve helpful and harmful bonus tokens can float down, from blanket-igniting fire to a victim-rescuing Superman summoning token. If you're too slow and the fire gets too hot, some of the victims may start leaping from windows. You can catch them with the blanket, but if you fail to catch three of them, it's game over as well. You win each of the twenty levels by either rescuing all the victims or putting out the fire completely.

Some of the tokens are a little cheap in both directions: the rare totem is basically an instant win, and the not quite so rare gas tank, which while not an instant game over, puts the player in an extremely difficult position. However the game's quarter-eating arcade-style addictiveness and awesomely ridiculous softest of soft cheesecake art make this a title that's hard to put down. Try muting the game and playing while listening to a modern cover of an 80s song to get the full retro remade effect.

Play Bouncy Fire Fighters