At the moment, there is only one bomb. If a bomb is active, you are not able to have another bomb spawn. One tactic that can be employed as a result of this is to spam multiplication on numbers as often as possible while the bomb is active in order to get to very high value tiles.

The downside of this is - it seems a bit of a cheap way to accumulate a high score. Secondly, it means tiles end up having really long numbers displayed on them, which can make the game look a little strange. So I tried to think of alternative solutions.

Solution 1: A tiles value cannot go over the value of the “target tile” (1337 normally). If a tile goes over that value, it is destroyed and you do not earn (or lose) any points for that tile. The benefits of this is it stops aimless / large calculations being spammed while bomb is active, and also restricts the board from having to display any huge numbers. It also helps keep the score reasonable. The downside to this is it renders division and subtractions less useful. I would often get to 1340, and the subtract 3 to get to 1337 - but this would no longer be possible. They would still have their use, but it would take away some of their usefulness.

Solution 2: Allow multiple bombs to spawn, regardless of if one is active or not. The benefit of this is it stops the exploit of knowing on one bomb can spawn, so if you do start spamming, you’re under the same risk as you’d usually be. The drawbacks to this though are plentiful. The bomb spawn is already a “chance” element, if you were to come across another bomb while swiftly combining tiles to try and defuse an existing bomb, it could get very frustrating and “more down to luck” than your ability. In addition to this, it still allows for large numbers to be accumulated (legitimately, no exploit) - this being bad for the sake of displaying 5+ digits on a single tile.

At the moment I have implemented solution 1. I am concerned it will take away from gameplay, but I think deep down it is the right decision. I would be happy to recieve feedback on this.