Nostalgic Game Design Focus - Bubble Bobble

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Don't bubble me bro!

OK - I couldn't resist. ^_~

'Bubble Bobble' is an epic 16-bit tale and rescue mission which takes you through no less than 100 levels to reach the end of the game. Perhaps.

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Welcome. This is 'Nostalgic Game Design Focus' a series where I get to think back and comment upon games that I had played when I was much younger - mostly from a game-design perspective.

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Title: Bubble Bobble

Publishers: Taito

Developer: Taito

Designer: Fukio Mitsuji

Composer: Tadashi Kimijima

Released: 1986 (Atari Port 1987)

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I'll admit that I didn't personally play this title very often - but when I did - I was hooked for a fair while. The thing is that I found 'Bubble Bobble' to be both relaxing and yet challenging. It also had a lot more going on than it let on - making it well worth writing about. :cP

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Premise of the Game

As mentioned before, video games of the era (and especially those released pre-90s), had a tendency of having the most tentative of plots.

That being said 'Bubble Bobble' may have a simple premise but it is also kind of easily relatable.

In the game's plot, "Baron Von Blubba" has stolen away the love interests of brothers "Bub" and "Bob". To further add insult to injury both brothers were cursed to assume the forms of cutesy dragons. Bubble-breathing dragons.

In spite of their newfound bubbly disposition, Bub and Bob need to brave "The Cave of Monsters" so as to rescue their girlfriends.

Of course - in-game the story is a little more sparse.

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Bubble Bobble - a Pro-Females Game?

It was absolutely awesome to hear about this - but while researching the background of this game I came across an article that delves into the cultural background of Bubble Bobble.

The most striking thing about it was that it appears that 'Bubble Bobble's' designer, Fukio Mitsuji, was actively seeking to make a game to be played by couples.

This at a time when female gamers were far less involved than they are today (and, for as long as there remain females who would 'like' to game but feel that something about the gaming field pushes them away or prevents them entry, I'd say that there shall remain work to be done - but I digress!). He noticed that females were rarely seen in Japanese arcades - and really wanted to change that.

This was his first effort - and made several design decisions with this specific consideration in mind.

Lets go over it again.

Bubble... breathing... cutesy dragons that-you-just-wanna-huggle!

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Game Play

In the control of a player each character dragon could do the following:

• Walk

• Jump (and fall)

• Blow Bubbles (and interact with them)

It doesn't seem like much - but this game is a good example of how powerful it can be to implement few mechanics very well.

Moving and jumping is pretty normal fare. Its the bubble blowing that is the main event.

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Blow Bubbles

As dragons Bub and Bob are able to blow bubbles. This projects a coloured bubble one third of the way across the screen laterally. Once it gets there it starts to float upwards.

This floating continues for a while until either the player pops it or it naturally pops after its time expires.

Bubbles can be used for several purposes:

Bubble Attack! - Any single enemy that is in the way of a bubble as its being blown gets encased and trapped within the bubble and also begins to spin around in an uncontrolled dizzy fashion.

While they are encased in a bubble, enemies are quite helpless and may be defeated by bursting a bubble (jumping n through or top of the enemy-encasing bubble.

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Bubble Ladder! - If a bubble isn't encasing anything then a player can jump onto the balloon and rise with it! This seems so simple but it does a lot to make other unreachable areas of a level accessible.

Bubble Spam! - OK - this isn't usually very useful but a player can spawn as many bubbles as s/he wants - and that can be a little fun at times.

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Level Design

In this game, each level needs to be cleared of enemies before being allowed to progress to the next stage.

Within the same screen space would abound a number of platforms, and a player gets to see players and enemies being lowered onto to the level.

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Wrapping Maps - While some maps are completely framed by bricks, others have gaps. When one falls down one of these gaps, one appears at the top of the screen. One reason why I like this is because it provided a little more openness to those maps - and in this game that was often a good thing.

Colours Abound! - With that pitch black background it was really nice to see that the tiles that levels are built with came in various textures and colours. Without it, the game would have looked too subdued and monotonous in graphics style.

Enemy Placement - Even though this is far from the only game to place enemies at specific predetermined positions, a game such as 'Bubble Bobble' has little enough else going on to appreciate the deliberate nature of such.

In this game placement is just as much about aesthetics as it is about challenge.

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Game Design Commentary!

Yes, even in a game as (deceptively) simple as this, one can find interesting game design choices that were made.

More on bubbles! - We have already spoken about bubbles, but it is so core to the gameplay that its worth noting a number of further things.

Bubbles do not simply float upwards indefinitely. They often drift left and/or to the right until they gather in particular focal points of the level screen. This might have been simply to replicate the presence of a breeze or it might have added a level of control. Each level behaves a little differently in this regards.

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Fruity Demise - It seems that fruits and points have always been correlated to each other in video games. I am not sure if its intended as an arcade-bound subliminal message and subtle hint towards fruit slot machines that one might expect in the vicinity of an arcade game.

Maybe it was just a subtle way to encourage players to eat more fruits - but junkfood high points items doesn't fit into that hypothesis.

Either way, popping and defeating encased enemies resulted in them turning into fruits, defeating multiple enemies at the same time increased the odds of getting more valuable fruit (and other foods) worth more points.

EXTEND - Throughout various levels one will find that coloured and lettered balloons float in from off-screen. Collecting them all gives the player an extra life 'and' to automatically move on to the next level.

Furthermore, popping enemies at the same time can result in these special bubbles appearing the next round. Two less than the number of enemes popped simultaneously!

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Collecting Power Ups - Water to flush enemies, Fire to create impassible zones, and Lightning to strike afar. Besides, these, once in a while - when the circumstances are right - potion bottles will appear, and when collected these will swap out everything in the level for a bunch of mini rainbows that one has a limited time to collect.

Time Trouble! - If a player spends too much time on a level, there will come a point where the music will speed up, enemies will become more hyper and dangerous, along with the appearance of an invincible enemy that will hound you until you're dead.

Music will return back to normal when either a player loses a life or the level is completed. Surviving enemies will also return back to normal.

Last Foe Standing - When only one foe remains, it becomes hyper (or angry) and produces a bit more of a nuisance. This doesn't go away until defeated.

Time for a Break! - While the levels themselves get tougher, the game always allows the players several seconds following completion of a level before moving on to the next one. This allows you to collect any leftover fruit points bonuses - or simply to relax for a precious moment before the next challenge rolls up.

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Multiple Endings - I must admit that I never was good enough at the game to beat it.

However it might not have mattered had I beat it alone*. There appears to be multiple endings - and that the "true ending" can only be unlocked through beating the game with both players.

The single player ending will actually hint at this.

Genius on Fukio Mitsuji's part.

(* Just kidding. It matters to me. ;cP)

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Game Atmosphere

It is not very easy to sum up 'Bubble Bobble's' atmosphere but here goes.

While the graphics style is a little bare-bones and simplistic - we need to keep in mind that its a 16-bit game. The animations are chunky but constant and satisfying. The colours are vivid and while the in-game level structures are not the most intricate, their skins are highly varied and add to an overall sense of 'joyous innocence' to the game. Perhaps due to space constraints the designers couldn't also fit in a background and so all levels have a simple black background.

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The sweetness of the graphics were well underlined by the game's great soundtrack. The only thing here is that its not long enough, not varied enough and simply - not enough. Its more or less the same soundtrack repeating over and over , sometimes speeding up and sometimes slowing down, but more or less the same tune. Remember how I said that I didn't play this game very often? 'This' is the main reason why.

Still, I'd come back for more, and when I 'did' feel like listening to that tune over and over the experience was good. Really good.

Beyond the sights and the sounds though - I really enjoyed the fact that this game would steadily hammer you with ever more challenging levels - while also giving you that short breather between each one. Its the total delivery that turns it into something special - and I do believe that it could be a lot more. With spin-oofs of the game coming out in recent years - you never know what the future might bring.

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As per usual, here follows a video illustrating the gameplay... and this player knows what s/he is doing.

Hackers examining the code of Bubble Bobble were surprised to find that 'everything' that happens in game is linked to players' actions. That apparently includes strategically "goofing off" on some levels. ;c)

Ah memories.

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When the nostalgia bubbles over then its time to take a rest and invite you all to the comments! I hope that you enjoyed the trip down memory lane. :c) Do you have any comments or feedback? Do get in on the discussion down below!

Also, if you found this post interesting and would like to share this with your followers and friends then a resteem is always appreciated.

Sincerely,

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