A port of Bust-A-Move
Puzzle Bobble is an action puzzle game released by Taito in 1994. Bub and Bob, the bubble spitting dragons from the action game, BUBBLE BOBBLE, are back in a new bubble-based puzzle! Skillfully bounce bubbles off the walls and match 3 or more bubbles of the same color to erase them! Enjoy the easy to learn, but hard to master, bubble shooter puzzle game!
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Really fun game, but I have two big issues with it
1. The garbage bubbles that get sent to you should always prioritize areas where bubbles are higher up I.E. "safe" areas. I can't count how many times I've been one shot away from a huge comeback only to be instantly killed by a single bubble landing in the exact worst spot instead of the 80% of the screen that is totally unoccupied.
2. The timer produces too many checkmate scenarios. If you have any bubbles in the bottom row, and the next three bubbles the game gives you aren't going to be enough to clear them up, then screen shake may as well be an instant game over. There are a lot of potential solutions for this one.
I think if pushing the whole board down would result in a game over, you could instead have an equivalent number of bubbles materialize in the aforementioned safe areas. This would still disrupt the player by reinforcing/undermining the chokes they've been setting up. Something tells me that you could exploit this, but I'm not sure how.
A second solution could be to prevent the timer from moving forward on turns when the player pops a bubble, however this doesn't solve the basic problem of bad bubble RNG intersecting with running out of time.
These kinds of RNG problems are especially egregious in a game where there is already a second player introducing noise. It's like if in a boxing max the ref suddenly started throwing superman punches to keep the boxers on their toes.
1. The garbage bubbles that get sent to you should always prioritize areas where bubbles are higher up I.E. "safe" areas. I can't count how many times I've been one shot away from a huge comeback only to be instantly killed by a single bubble landing in the exact worst spot instead of the 80% of the screen that is totally unoccupied.
2. The timer produces too many checkmate scenarios. If you have any bubbles in the bottom row, and the next three bubbles the game gives you aren't going to be enough to clear them up, then screen shake may as well be an instant game over. There are a lot of potential solutions for this one.
I think if pushing the whole board down would result in a game over, you could instead have an equivalent number of bubbles materialize in the aforementioned safe areas. This would still disrupt the player by reinforcing/undermining the chokes they've been setting up. Something tells me that you could exploit this, but I'm not sure how.
A second solution could be to prevent the timer from moving forward on turns when the player pops a bubble, however this doesn't solve the basic problem of bad bubble RNG intersecting with running out of time.
These kinds of RNG problems are especially egregious in a game where there is already a second player introducing noise. It's like if in a boxing max the ref suddenly started throwing superman punches to keep the boxers on their toes.
Originally found as a garage sale CD in a stack of them in the early 2000's and as a long lover of puzzle games and a mother who loved Bejeweled this became a staple VS game for us.
Real fun puzzle game.
The puzzle GOAT