Boom and Bust

A shooting-gallery word puzzle. A phrase, a thing or an occupation is hidden as a row of cards, while letters ride ten rails across a fairground booth. Your cannon fires one pellet a turn. Hit a letter that is in the puzzle and every copy turns over for $10 each, and you shoot again. Hit a letter that is not there, hit a bomb (BUST), miss, or run out of time and the turn is lost. Any time you are aiming you may solve: get it right and your round money plus $500 is banked; get it wrong and the turn passes. When only one kind of letter is left hidden, you must solve. Two players take turns, or one plays for a shrinking bonus. After eight puzzles the bigger bank is the BOOM AND BUST CHAMPION.

Controls: Use either controller. Push the stick left or right to move the cannon, press the left button to fire and the right button to solve. While solving, up and down change the letter, left and right choose the card, and a button guesses. On the title, up and down choose and a button starts.

ColecoVision version credited in the source to Claude (an AI made by Anthropic) for Amy Studio, in Amy, the language by Amy Bienvenu, 2026: a reimagined adaptation of the published rules. From COMPUTE!'s Gazette, September 1988: original Commodore 64 program (no author named in the issue). This is a modern homebrew adaptation, not a commercial Coleco release.