Caromble! Review

Caromble! is a game that combines brick-breaking action with pinball, platforming, and trick-shot puzzles into a 3D physics-based adventure. Developed and published by Crimson Owl Studios, this game has been in the works for… hold on, over 15 years!?

That was all the way back in 2011, and it hit Early Access around 2015, and now it's coming out on the 22nd of April 2026. That’s up there with the likes of Duke Nukem Forever, but at least this title has the benefit of public feedback over the years. I applaud the development team for actually reaching this point. So, will Caromble! be worth the wait, or is this going to be a massive waste of time? I really hope it isn’t!

I was rather shocked to learn that there is a story in this game. You see, long ago, six special devices — the Arkatrons — were created and scattered across the universe. When assembled together, they create something called the “Caromble!” (yes, it’s spelt like that), which can decide the fate of the universe. Although there are Protectors who dedicate their lives to ensuring the Arkatron’s collection and safety, it’s not long after they’re all found that an ancient evil swoops in to steal them all! Now the ancient threat is on Earth, and it's up to two Protectors, their paddle-shaped ship, and a ball to stop the big red boss, retrieve the Arkatrons, and save the Earth before it’s too late.

First off, I was taken aback by the fact that the game’s story campaign started with such a fancy 3D intro and voice acting. It’s quite well done and made me interested in this world. The rest of the game, though, looks more out of a comic book, with even comic book–style cutscenes. It’s not going to stress test your PC graphically, but it does a lot with the art direction. The same goes for the music and audio design; it’s pretty good when I got the chance just to listen to it, though I did find myself ignoring it because I was too focused on the game. Hearing “This is Caromble!” every time I started the game never got tiring.

But enough about that, let’s get… balling, I guess. In Story mode, every level breaks down to you breaking enough stuff to charge a portal, repeating that a few times, then fighting the big, mean red guy at the end. Of course, it’s a lot easier said than done, as stages can feel more like pinball than Breakout at times, requiring precision and planning to complete the stage.

But it isn’t just having to keep your ball from leaving the playfield. You can spin the ball to make it curve; perfect for tricky spots that it normally can’t get access to and earning more points. You can also charge your paddle for a power shot, allowing your ball to pierce through objects until it hits something solid. However, charging up will force the paddle to stay still, so it’s best done while the ball is bouncing around.

Some objects will drop special power-ups that help you in a pinch, like Extra Lives, Grow (which makes your paddle bigger), and Extra Balls. However, watch out as there are some pretty insane power-downs, like Pixelate, which turns your resolution all the way down to sub-144p and Frogview, which lowers your camera. They’re actually pretty cool and make levels a little more challenging and exciting. Sometimes you can’t avoid power-downs and need to deal with them until they run out.

However, let’s not forget what the goal is. Beating the last level in a chapter will earn you an Arkatron, granting a special ability you can activate to bend time, warp matter, and interrupt linearity to help beat levels in a more efficient manner or get you out of bad situations. You’ll need all the help you can get as levels get more complex and harder to beat as you progress.

That being said, the fight against the boss is easily the most annoying part of beating a level. Since aiming is limited, hitting the ancient threat is rather difficult and might take a while to do. Not only that, in many stages, its shields regenerate, resetting any progress you make if you take too long to hit it again. I was getting angry that I couldn’t control the ball directly, which made me lose focus, causing me to lose lives, and then needing to restart the level once I ran out. It actually severely affected my feelings toward the game, as while the actual brick-breaking is a fun endeavour with tons of interesting scenarios, the boss fight was nothing more than a test of my patience that kept running out way too soon.

If you’re struggling and just want to complete the level, you can choose the Mercy option upon losing all your lives, which will give you an extra shot (99 for Easy, one for Normal, zero for Hard). However, taking it comes at a cost: being unable to earn the high score and speedrun medals, as well as your time and score being stricken off the leaderboards, and if you beat an Arkatron level while under Mercy, you don’t get it! You still can get to the next stage, but it’s going to be way harder. That would’ve been nice to learn beforehand…

If the Story mode isn’t to your liking, there are other ways to play, such as Skill Levels to really test your brick-breaking mettle. They are unlocked by how many medals you obtain in the campaign, so you aren’t totally free from that. These unique scenarios might task you with being accurate, racing to complete an objective, or simply getting a high score. They’re honestly kinda fun to try out and made me a better player for it.

Although I didn’t experience it myself, the full release has Daily Runs containing randomly generated levels and a fresh leaderboard every day, so if you aren’t clicking with anything else, at least there’s a mode where you can simply chase after a high score.

Onto technical performance, and I didn’t run into any frame drops despite running on the highest settings. It was running at 60 FPS, no matter how much chaos and destruction were being created. However, I did experience some real issues that affected my experience.

The first problem I ran into as soon as I started the game? I couldn’t use the right control scheme. Despite the game recommending I play with my mouse and keyboard, it didn't register, no matter how much I tried to fix it. I had to use my controller, which felt off and made some levels so much harder than I thought they should be. Also, strangely enough, the game doesn’t stop when I quit. It just keeps running in the background for some odd reason, so I needed to go to Steam to stop it. This is all on an old build from last year, though, so the full release might not have these issues.

Although I hated the boss fights, Caromble! is still a pretty fun time. There is definitely tons of love and passion in this project, with over 15 years of development to get to this point, but some of its issues made me want to spike my controller into the floor. Caromble! itself is enjoyable, but what it requires you to do can be infuriating.