Last night I came up with an idea for a game heavily based on later versions of Bomberman, with some improvements/additions, but restricting myself to using only black and white (no colors or shades of grey) which creates a deliberate challenge of making realistic shading. I tried this a while ago with a different game, but it never really went anywhere.
In the attached screenshot, the left half shows solid black floor tiles, and the right half shows checkered tiles. Which one do you prefer? On one hand, the checkered tiles make bomb sprites stand out more than on black sprites, but on the other, the checkered tiles might cause eye strain.

Actually, if I do end up going with the black floor, I could use something like a white outline for the bombs (see updated pic).

To be honest, the right side does something funky to my eyes if I watch it at the original resolution, so my own preference goes to the left side. The outline around objects is definitely the right way to go there.

Maybe you could experiment with different patterns for the ground as well and add some variety in levels that way. Also, it might be a good idea to soften the black into a dark gray to make it a little easier on the eyes (much like how a lot of Game Boy emulators don't use pure black).

I'm definitely going to use different patterns for variety, this was just sort of a rough idea for the tiles. I'd rather keep it to black and white, if at all possible, though if it turns out to be impossible to do without making it ugly or hard to look at, I may end up just using the Game Boy's four color palette.

Well, I'm looking forward to the game. Bomberman-like + improvements and additions sounds intriguing to me!

I prefer the black with white outline, aka left side of updated pic. Looking good, tho. Color me interested!

Jeez, restricting myself to only two colors is much more difficult than I had anticipated. I'm really hoping it'll still work out, but I may have to switch to the (original) Game Boy palette.