Bomber Undressing Air Hockey (with maids) is how you should start your weekend

Sometimes, you’re just in the mood for something ridiculous and stupid, like, say, exploding the clothes off a series of cute pixel art maids while playing a game of air hockey. And if that exact thing is what you’re in the mood for today? Boy, do I have the game for you.

Bomber Undressing Air Hockey or, to give it its more proper name, ボンバー脱衣エアホッケー (Bonbā Datsui Eahokkē), is a game from the artist known as Ryokuchamichi or Green Tea Area. If you’re unfamiliar with this artist, they specialise in two things: erotic art of mature women with a certain amount of, ah, “squish” to them; and loving homages to retro gaming.

Both of those things make them a fine upstanding sort of person in my book — though I’ll note at this point I actually stumbled across them through their retro-style games first and only later discovered the saucy delights of their thoroughly NSFW Twitter account.

While Green Tea Area (as we shall refer to them hereafter) has previously put out a number of games that are obvious homages to Famicom-era video games, Bomber Undressing Air Hockey presents more of a general appreciation of old-school gaming. Not only is its gameplay simple and straightforward, but its pixel art brings to mind the early 16-bit era, and the game’s background art pays homage to the days when arcades were in their prime.

As the game name suggests, there are three main components to Bomber Undressing Air Hockey: explosions, undressing and air hockey.

The air hockey side of things is relatively straightforward. Using your mouse to control your mallet, you hit the puck back and forth across the table until either you or the pixel-art maid you’re competing against wins 9 points. The primary means through which you score points is by knocking the puck into your opponent’s goal, but you can also get a point by blasting off a layer of your opponent’s clothes — which is where both the explosions and undressing come into play.

After either you or your opponent have served the puck, a countdown appears above the puck as it slides around, with it decreasing by one every time either you hit it or it bounces off the walls of the table. If someone hits the puck when the countdown is on zero, it explodes and the “survivor” gets a point; if your opponent was the unfortunate one, they also lose a bit of their clothing.

However, if the puck rebounds off a wall while the countdown is on zero, it resets to its maximum value and continues to bounce around. As such, you’ll need to not only keep an eye on the path the puck is taking as it approaches you, but also time your return shots carefully to avoid inadvertently exploding yourself!

It’s a simple concept, but it works well, and the exploding angle presents an interesting twist on what would otherwise be a rather pedestrian game concept. It adds interest and variety and makes the game much more exciting; even without taking the clothes damage into account, it’s still incredibly satisfying to win a point with a powerful explosion.

With Green Tea Area being an artist by trade, it will doubtless be unsurprising to hear that the presentation of Bomber Undressing Air Hockey is a real highlight of the experience as a whole. Unlike some of Green Tea Area’s other works, the game doesn’t appear to be a deliberate attempt to pay homage to a specific type of retro hardware, but rather the creation of a distinctly retro-inspired vibe. It can also be looked upon as an homage to lewd arcade games themselves.

Arcade machines in the background of the game screen resemble Sega’s “City” series of arcade cabinets — of which the Astro City is probably the most well-known example — while the constant coming and going of silhouetted passers-by gives the sense that you and your maid companion are competing in a busy arcade where people are having fun.

In a nice touch, as your game of Bomber Undressing Air Hockey progresses — and particularly when your maid starts losing some of her clothes — some of the silhouetted passers-by will actually come and stand either side of the table, applauding and cheering both of you on as you continue to play. It’s a subtle but appreciated touch that really adds some atmosphere to the experience as a whole, and further adds to the “busy arcade” vibe that the game has going on.

Your ultimate aim is to defeat the six default characters — each of whom has their own distinctive appearance and voice acting — and take on the secret seventh character. Once you beat the seventh character, you’ve beaten the game — though you can always then try to play through on a harder difficulty or attempt to beat your best win margins against the various opponents, since the game keeps track of your score records.

Unlike some of Green Tea Area’s other games — particularly the Famicom-inspired ones — there’s a fair amount of Japanese text in Bomber Undressing Air Hockey, but most of it is dialogue that you don’t need to understand in order to play. The main game action is completely playable if you can’t read Japanese, though if you do have some literacy in the language you’ll be able to enjoy a little bit of personality from each of the girls through their win and lose quotes.

Bomber Undressing Air Hockey is likely not a game that is going to keep you busy for a long time, but as a showcase of Green Tea Area’s pixel art, animation and programming skills, it’s wonderful. Plus it’s 500 yen, which is about £3.22 — for that price I’m more than happy to support the passion projects of an artist I like.

If you want to try Bomber Undressing Air Hockey for yourself, you can grab it from either Booth or DLsite. (Note that both sites contain NSFW content!) And if you’d like to try some of Green Tea Area’s other games for yourself — highly recommended if you have a fondness for early-era Famicom titles! — then you can find links to all of them on Green Tea Area’s official site.

^{Disclosure: Some links in this article may be affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on them. This is at no additional cost to you and helps support Rice Digital!}

• Author
• Recent Posts

Pete Davison

Pete is Rice Digital's editor, and a proud champion of any and all games involving pretty girls hanging out, saving the world or both. His first waifu was Rit from Rod Land.

Latest posts by Pete Davison (see all)

• Letter from the Editor: passing the torch - June 30, 2023
• Super Woden GP 2 is looking promising - June 30, 2023
• Inti Creates is making a 32 bit-style Love Live action platformer - June 26, 2023