About the original puzzle bubble game
Puzzle Bubble is a flash video game which was originally developed in Japan in the mid 1990's and has undergone transition to become a seriously successful game in the world market since its conception.
The original game title was "Bust-A-Move" and indeed it can still be found under that title at times, depending on the home market of the customers. It is quite an addictive game as many arcade games from that era are and is demanding of the player's time, while being somewhat frustrating at times despite the easy method of play.
Once again, the Puzzle Bubble game is the sort that you play after you complete the work you need to do, be it homework for the student or work at the office. The game evolved from the infamous game called Bubble Bobble and still bears many of the same characteristics. The Puzzle Bobble game is available on the internet for free download and comes in a variety of formats in addition to Shareware and outright purchase versions.
As with most online games, the free download one is less complex than the paid versions which reflect the additional development costs in writing additional software.
The game consists of a number of colored bobbles (or bubbles) which are on the screen. Basic sounds come with the game. The object is to have your bobble strike ones of similar color to clear those from the screen. There has to be a group of a minimum of three similar colored bobbles for them to drop and they take any other colors hanging from them with them as they drop and disappear. This does make the game more interesting to play than the more simple games which only clear the target bubbles.
As the game progresses the top of the screen gradually becomes lower making play harder. This "ceiling" drop is influenced in time by a combination of number of shots fired, actual time lapsed, and the colors of the bobbles on the screen.
You are able to use the sides of the field of play to rebound your bobble to reach those harder bobbles of the color you desire. However you cannot use the top of the field of play for rebounding, once a bobble hits the top it stays there. In this game you use the arrow keys to position the arrow and space bar to shoot your bobble or you can use a joystick.
The characters in Puzzle Bubble seen on screen are numerous and while quite basic are indeed also cute little images. The bobble's colors each have their own enemy names; Red is "Super Socket', Yellow is called "Hullabaloon", Green is "Willy Whistle", Blue is "Bubble Buster", Purple is "Beluga", Orange is "Coiley", Black is "Incendo" and finally White is "Stoner". A number of them also have aliases.
The player's knowledge of the names doesn't affect the actual play of the basic game. The game consists of a number of rounds, in the usual increasing difficulty to play them. As with many of this type of game the more advanced players are in the Puzzle Bubble game the more playing to increase their own "record" score rather than the actual bursting of the bubbles.
The scoring is slightly more complex than many games of similar design and in this game the bobbles of a different color cleared at the same time as the target color are worth quite a lot of points and this is one of the main points experienced players look for. The greater the number of these odd colored bobbles cleared to higher the score, it is not a straightforward equation.
Bobbles of the same color as the one used to shoot them are worth 10 points each, regardless of the number cleared at any one time. Another thing affecting score is the actual time taken to clear the screen. The optimum time is 5 seconds which will attract the maximum 50,000 point time bonus.
This bonus reduces directly by time taken and anything over one minute does not attract any time points. Bobbles which are presented to target the screen appear to be random in color, although doubtless once you play the game regularly and become an expert then the colors will be more predictable. Extremely high scores are possible, a theme which was perhaps originally derived from the old pinball machines, but which seems to work well with experienced gamers and novices alike. Indeed a very experienced player could attract a score of upwards of 30 million points in one game.
There are a possible 30 rounds to complete in Puzzle Bubble, so this game adequately meets even the most experienced player's requirements. As with most flash games there are a few secret tips to earn extra points on various levels. The task is to maintain speed and accuracy at the same time, much easier said than done.
There is also a two player version of the game which does not have rounds but consists of dual screens, both of which are identical originally. When a player clears four or more bobbles from his screen the "hanging" ones are transferred to the opponent's screen.
In Bust-A-Move '99 one of the attractions of the game is it's flexibility and despite looking fairly basic some quite complex code writing which means no two games are ever the same, this, in itself, presents the experienced user with more than the usual level of difficulty. This means that it is impossible to memorize moves in earlier rounds played for the next time as there will be a completely new game and new rounds to challenge the player. There are also four different skill levels and five different modes, so a great combination of possible games.
Puzzle Bubble game is available for almost all platforms, either computers with Windows as the operating system or Mac ones in addition to all major games consoles, and hand held devices such as iPhones and Palm. It is also available on CD. Puzzle Bobble is also available as a stand alone hand held game. There is also a "Super Bust-A-Move" game for those wishing to have a more advanced version of the basic one.
Beyond Puzzle Bobble we have also added many other bubble related games including the bubble blaster series by Hero Interactive. These offer a different genre to the puzzle bubble games. Instead they are more about action and shooting than about matching 3 of a kind and will offer you a much welcomed variation when you get tired of Bust a Move.