[Average Reading Time: 7 Minutes]
Crystal Castles walked so Gubble could... gubble?
Years ago, when I was a kid, my mom brought home a computer game simply called Gubble. She got it from a day camp she worked at during the summer, which had a room for kids to play computer games in for around an hour. Because of this, there was no cd case with it. It was a simple disc with a label that just said "GUBBLE" in big black letters on an all-white background. We booted it up and it seemed innocent enough. You guide around a little purple alien to unscrew pieces of the level. I didn't get far with that game at all back then, since I was really young and could barely operate a computer on my own.
Years would pass, and soon I would find that a PlayStation port of the game existed, which I would then play and enjoy. However, I would always be interested in going back to the PC version I played as a kid. My prayers would be answered in 2020, when Gubble would make its way onto Steam. It wouldn't be until 4 years after this game hit the service before I played it, and now I can say I've avenged my youth by finally beating the version of Gubble I started on. I even did it on the highest difficulty level (which may have been a mistake).
The first thing I noticed with this version is that the video cutscenes weren't present. I initially thought it was a weird bug or something, but after inspecting the game's local files I found that they didn't even include the video cutscenes with this game. This was weird to me, since the original PC version and the PlayStation version had them. Thankfully, the local files also contain a PDF containing the game's very limited story.
In this game, we take the role of Gubble D. Gleep (a.k.a. The Gleepmeister or Gleepdude, as the story lovingly refers to him as). He is partaking in his favorite activity, which is sleeping, when he is abducted by aliens. He is approached by a robot who mistakes him for Gubble D. Gloop, whom they were supposed to abduct for a special mission. After realizing they captured the wrong Gubble, they then choose to entrust the mission to him. Space pirates have inserted large screws, nails and bolts into the Zymbots of their world, and it is now Gubble's job to undo all of that. Once he does, he will be able to go home and resume his snooze cruise.
Zymbots are basically your levels for this game. Funnily enough, the game will call them levels on the world map but will call them Zymbots when you beat them, so it gets a little weird. Anyway, there are over 100 stages to clear in this game, as well as a ton of bonus stages and extra difficult challenge stages. While I did clear the 104 stages I needed to in order to beat the game, I did not do all of those challenge stages because they were super tough (more on those later).
How levels work is simple: you find a tool, whether it be a screwdriver or a hammer or something else, and then you ride that object over whatever screws or nails are fixed within the stage to remove them. Remove each one and you clear the stage! However, there are enemies to contend with, as well as cannons and mines to trip you up. Gubble doesn't die in one hit, but he does have a health bar. Once it's depleted, it's Game Over. However, this version of the game auto saves after each stage, so you don't have to worry about losing progress upon death, which is nice.
The game takes heavy inspiration from the title Crystal Castles, which was an isometric arcade game where you navigate a bear around a structure from a fixed camera angle in order to collect dots while avoiding foes. Think of it like Pac-Man but with more complex stage design. Gubble takes these elements and adds in the need to find an object to take to what would be the dots to collect them, and I think it's a neat way of doing it! It makes gameplay more interesting when you're now thinking about the multiple steps it will take to clear the stage, rather than just heading straight for the dots on the map. It also introduces the idea of having multiple tools in a stage for removing different things fixed into the stage, which is some welcome depth to the gameplay design.
Besides tools and screws, you'll find many space pirates on each stage. These baddies come in many flavors, from weird bugs to springs with heads on them to robots that shoot rockets at you when they see you. Enemy variety is pretty decent in this game, and new enemy types are gradually added to the game as you reach further stages. Most foes can be avoided using Gubble's jetpack, which he can deploy at any time and can use as long as he wants without any fuel limits. Others, though, will either be hovering in your air space or will jump up to attack you, so you can't just fly over everything and expect to be safe.
Gubble can't fight back, but there are powerups that can even the odds a bit. There's a speed up item he can acquire that makes you move faster, a health pickup that restores some life, and an item that can pause all enemy movements for a short while. As useful as these are, I do wish there was some way to dispatch enemies, though, especially when they get more aggressive in the back half of the game.
Speaking of the back half of this game, Gubble gets pretty hard as you delve deeper into it. It may have been because I opted for the hardest difficulty, but I was quickly being assaulted with fast moving enemies, mines scattered onto the floor, and other hazards that would require me to restart stages multiple times. There are even a small handful of stages that require you to take damage, which I was not a fan of. They also do this thing in some stages where they will hide screws behind parts of the level. Since they're all pre-rendered you can't rotate the view, so there will be times where you'll be zooming all over a stage just to find a screw hidden behind a wall. Very annoying.
This isn't even taking into account the optional stages in the game. On some stages, you'll find a giant S hanging out. Going over to it and interacting with it will take you to an optional stage. At first, they're simply an added bonus challenge to boost your score, but as the game goes on these get absurdly hard. I quickly found myself skipping over them towards the late game. Beating them marks them on the stage in the hub, so unless you really care about getting 100% in Gubble of all games, you don't have to worry about these.
What you should consider going for are the Bonus Zymbots, which are small minigames you can find in some stages that will not only give you some more score but will also spawn a health pickup in the stage you found it in after clearing it! Very useful if you find one of these on a later stage!
While kid me was a little put off by the graphical style of this game, nowadays I think the game has a ton of charm in the visual department. All of the stages are pre-rendered and have an aesthetic that's very pleasing to the eyes. As I played the game and looked at all of these, I thought to myself "Man, if you got rid of the sprites and the HUD, you'd have some banger wall papers to choose from here." Thankfully, the local files contain exactly that! With so many stages in the game, it would be impossible to link all of the renders in this review, so Here's a small handful of them for you to enjoy looking at!
The stages aren't the only sight to behold here. The enemies all look cool and weird in memorable ways. The artists on the team did a great job making them fit well with the pre-rendered backgrounds. The same can also be said of Gubble, himself. He's a cute little alien dude in his weird green rocket chair.
One thing you'll quickly become aware of with Gubble is that this dude never stops making noises. Whenever you get on a tool, he says some gibberish and makes some noises. This also happens every time you get hit, when you die, and when you clear stages. You're gonna become very familiar with all of his sounds, and unless you mute the sounds in the options on the main menu, you're gonna start hearing them in your dreams! It's also worth noting that every stupid little sound this freak makes is in the local files as .wav's, so if you buy the game you can unleash the horrors of Gubble sounds onto anyone you want at any time, which is very tempting.
While on the topic of sounds, let's talk that Gubble soundtrack. In short, it's weird. It definitely fits the vibes of being a weird little alien in a weird alien world doing weird stuff. When you first boot this game, you'll be treated to COMEDY, which will also play while you choose levels in the hub world, so be ready to get used to that zany tune. The other tracks in the game are thankfully a less annoying and more interesting, like DRIVE and DANGERO. There's a good variety to the music of Gubble that I respect. While I doubt I'll listen to these outside the game very much, I did enjoy what I heard as I played the game.
Overall, I feel that Gubble is a game worth checking out today. You can clear it in around 5 hours, and it isn't too expensive. It also helps that it's a fun puzzle game that gives you that good feeling of completely clearing out a stage of things. Now, if only they'll port the sequel and racing game next...
A NOTE FOR STEAM DECK OWNERS
I have good news and bad news for people who want to play Gubble on Steam Deck. The good news is that it works! The bad news is that you'll need to bind keyboard buttons to the controller and the music does not play! The first problem is simple enough to fix (I even uploaded a Dualsense controller setup for those of you that want to use that controller) but the second one is a much trickier beast. I highly recommend playing it on PC for a more authentic experience because of this, but if you don't mind not having music (sounds will still play) then you'll be fine on Deck!
Crystal Castles walked so Gubble could... gubble?
Years ago, when I was a kid, my mom brought home a computer game simply called Gubble. She got it from a day camp she worked at during the summer, which had a room for kids to play computer games in for around an hour. Because of this, there was no cd case with it. It was a simple disc with a label that just said "GUBBLE" in big black letters on an all-white background. We booted it up and it seemed innocent enough. You guide around a little purple alien to unscrew pieces of the level. I didn't get far with that game at all back then, since I was really young and could barely operate a computer on my own.
Years would pass, and soon I would find that a PlayStation port of the game existed, which I would then play and enjoy. However, I would always be interested in going back to the PC version I played as a kid. My prayers would be answered in 2020, when Gubble would make its way onto Steam. It wouldn't be until 4 years after this game hit the service before I played it, and now I can say I've avenged my youth by finally beating the version of Gubble I started on. I even did it on the highest difficulty level (which may have been a mistake).
The first thing I noticed with this version is that the video cutscenes weren't present. I initially thought it was a weird bug or something, but after inspecting the game's local files I found that they didn't even include the video cutscenes with this game. This was weird to me, since the original PC version and the PlayStation version had them. Thankfully, the local files also contain a PDF containing the game's very limited story.
In this game, we take the role of Gubble D. Gleep (a.k.a. The Gleepmeister or Gleepdude, as the story lovingly refers to him as). He is partaking in his favorite activity, which is sleeping, when he is abducted by aliens. He is approached by a robot who mistakes him for Gubble D. Gloop, whom they were supposed to abduct for a special mission. After realizing they captured the wrong Gubble, they then choose to entrust the mission to him. Space pirates have inserted large screws, nails and bolts into the Zymbots of their world, and it is now Gubble's job to undo all of that. Once he does, he will be able to go home and resume his snooze cruise.
Zymbots are basically your levels for this game. Funnily enough, the game will call them levels on the world map but will call them Zymbots when you beat them, so it gets a little weird. Anyway, there are over 100 stages to clear in this game, as well as a ton of bonus stages and extra difficult challenge stages. While I did clear the 104 stages I needed to in order to beat the game, I did not do all of those challenge stages because they were super tough (more on those later).
How levels work is simple: you find a tool, whether it be a screwdriver or a hammer or something else, and then you ride that object over whatever screws or nails are fixed within the stage to remove them. Remove each one and you clear the stage! However, there are enemies to contend with, as well as cannons and mines to trip you up. Gubble doesn't die in one hit, but he does have a health bar. Once it's depleted, it's Game Over. However, this version of the game auto saves after each stage, so you don't have to worry about losing progress upon death, which is nice.
The game takes heavy inspiration from the title Crystal Castles, which was an isometric arcade game where you navigate a bear around a structure from a fixed camera angle in order to collect dots while avoiding foes. Think of it like Pac-Man but with more complex stage design. Gubble takes these elements and adds in the need to find an object to take to what would be the dots to collect them, and I think it's a neat way of doing it! It makes gameplay more interesting when you're now thinking about the multiple steps it will take to clear the stage, rather than just heading straight for the dots on the map. It also introduces the idea of having multiple tools in a stage for removing different things fixed into the stage, which is some welcome depth to the gameplay design.
Besides tools and screws, you'll find many space pirates on each stage. These baddies come in many flavors, from weird bugs to springs with heads on them to robots that shoot rockets at you when they see you. Enemy variety is pretty decent in this game, and new enemy types are gradually added to the game as you reach further stages. Most foes can be avoided using Gubble's jetpack, which he can deploy at any time and can use as long as he wants without any fuel limits. Others, though, will either be hovering in your air space or will jump up to attack you, so you can't just fly over everything and expect to be safe.
Gubble can't fight back, but there are powerups that can even the odds a bit. There's a speed up item he can acquire that makes you move faster, a health pickup that restores some life, and an item that can pause all enemy movements for a short while. As useful as these are, I do wish there was some way to dispatch enemies, though, especially when they get more aggressive in the back half of the game.
Speaking of the back half of this game, Gubble gets pretty hard as you delve deeper into it. It may have been because I opted for the hardest difficulty, but I was quickly being assaulted with fast moving enemies, mines scattered onto the floor, and other hazards that would require me to restart stages multiple times. There are even a small handful of stages that require you to take damage, which I was not a fan of. They also do this thing in some stages where they will hide screws behind parts of the level. Since they're all pre-rendered you can't rotate the view, so there will be times where you'll be zooming all over a stage just to find a screw hidden behind a wall. Very annoying.
This isn't even taking into account the optional stages in the game. On some stages, you'll find a giant S hanging out. Going over to it and interacting with it will take you to an optional stage. At first, they're simply an added bonus challenge to boost your score, but as the game goes on these get absurdly hard. I quickly found myself skipping over them towards the late game. Beating them marks them on the stage in the hub, so unless you really care about getting 100% in Gubble of all games, you don't have to worry about these.
What you should consider going for are the Bonus Zymbots, which are small minigames you can find in some stages that will not only give you some more score but will also spawn a health pickup in the stage you found it in after clearing it! Very useful if you find one of these on a later stage!
While kid me was a little put off by the graphical style of this game, nowadays I think the game has a ton of charm in the visual department. All of the stages are pre-rendered and have an aesthetic that's very pleasing to the eyes. As I played the game and looked at all of these, I thought to myself "Man, if you got rid of the sprites and the HUD, you'd have some banger wall papers to choose from here." Thankfully, the local files contain exactly that! With so many stages in the game, it would be impossible to link all of the renders in this review, so Here's a small handful of them for you to enjoy looking at!
The stages aren't the only sight to behold here. The enemies all look cool and weird in memorable ways. The artists on the team did a great job making them fit well with the pre-rendered backgrounds. The same can also be said of Gubble, himself. He's a cute little alien dude in his weird green rocket chair.
One thing you'll quickly become aware of with Gubble is that this dude never stops making noises. Whenever you get on a tool, he says some gibberish and makes some noises. This also happens every time you get hit, when you die, and when you clear stages. You're gonna become very familiar with all of his sounds, and unless you mute the sounds in the options on the main menu, you're gonna start hearing them in your dreams! It's also worth noting that every stupid little sound this freak makes is in the local files as .wav's, so if you buy the game you can unleash the horrors of Gubble sounds onto anyone you want at any time, which is very tempting.
While on the topic of sounds, let's talk that Gubble soundtrack. In short, it's weird. It definitely fits the vibes of being a weird little alien in a weird alien world doing weird stuff. When you first boot this game, you'll be treated to COMEDY, which will also play while you choose levels in the hub world, so be ready to get used to that zany tune. The other tracks in the game are thankfully a less annoying and more interesting, like DRIVE and DANGERO. There's a good variety to the music of Gubble that I respect. While I doubt I'll listen to these outside the game very much, I did enjoy what I heard as I played the game.
Overall, I feel that Gubble is a game worth checking out today. You can clear it in around 5 hours, and it isn't too expensive. It also helps that it's a fun puzzle game that gives you that good feeling of completely clearing out a stage of things. Now, if only they'll port the sequel and racing game next...
A NOTE FOR STEAM DECK OWNERS
I have good news and bad news for people who want to play Gubble on Steam Deck. The good news is that it works! The bad news is that you'll need to bind keyboard buttons to the controller and the music does not play! The first problem is simple enough to fix (I even uploaded a Dualsense controller setup for those of you that want to use that controller) but the second one is a much trickier beast. I highly recommend playing it on PC for a more authentic experience because of this, but if you don't mind not having music (sounds will still play) then you'll be fine on Deck!