Design - Aniolobolo/Bubble-Bobble-WCG GitHub Wiki
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Narrative Structure
The story of Bubble Bobble follows the two protagonists, Bubby and Bobby, that live with their girlfriends, Betty and Patty. One day, Betty and Patty get lost in the Magician's Forest, stumbling into the Cave of Monsters, where they find an evil wizard called Super Drunk, that kidnaps them. In an attempt to rescue their girlfriends, Bubby and Bobby try to enter the Cave of Monsters, but they are transformed into two Bubble Dragons by Super Drunk. Now transformed as bubble shooting dragons, they are known as Bub and Bob, and their mission is to progress through 100 floors of the Cave of Monsters, meeting their new abilities, and defeating the enemies they will meet to finally rescue their girlfriends.
Level Analysis
The original game has 100 levels, but in our interpretation we will only include 4 levels and the final boss. An analysis of the levels we will use can be found below.
Level 1:
This level is the first one in the original game, we used it to introduce the player to the main mechanics easily. This level does not include any special bubbles.
Difficulty: Easy
In this level, we can find these enemies:
| Sprite | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
 |
Zen-Chan | One of the most common enemies in this game. Their main attack involves jumping and charging at the player to damage them. |
And these bonus items:
| Sprite | Name | Points |
|---|---|---|
 |
Cherry | 700 |
Level 2:
This is the sixty-fourth level in the original game, we used it to introduce the player to one of the special bubbles that appear throughout the game. The level does not include a bonus item.
If you fall through one of the holes of the level, don't worry! This level includes bottom-top communicating holes, which means that if you fall through one of the holes, you will come out of the top of the screen without taking any damage.
Difficulty: Medium
In this level, we can find these enemies:
| Sprite | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
 |
Invader | These enemies move back and forth firing a laser downwards. This laser can travel through walls. |
And these special bubbles:
| Sprite | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
 |
Water Bubble | Water Bubbles burst forth, unleashing a powerful stream that rushes along the stage's platforms, washing away enemies and instantly eliminating them. Players can ride these water currents safely, avoiding harm as they move across the stage. |
Level 3:
This is the ninth level in the original game, we used it to introduce the player to different enemies that appear in the game. This level does not include any special bubbles or bonus items.
Difficulty: Medium
In this level, we can find these enemies:
| Sprite | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
 |
Mighta | These enemies walk back and forth pushing boulders when they approach the player. |
Level 4:
This is the eighty-third level in the original game, we used it to introduce the player to different enemies that appear in the game. This level does not include any special bubbles or bonus items.
If you fall through one of the holes of the level, don't worry! This level includes bottom-top communicating holes, which means that if you fall through one of the holes, you will come out of the top of the screen without taking any damage.
Difficulty: Hard
In this level, we can find these enemies:
| Sprite | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Invader | These enemies move back and forth firing a laser downwards. This laser can travel through walls. |
 |
Drunk | These enemies attack by throwing bottles at the player, and move faster and jump higher than most enemies. |
Final boss:
This is the final level in the game, it includes a boss battle against Super Drunk, the main villain of the game. The player needs to defeat it to rescue Bub and Bob's girlfriends. This level includes a new super bubble, the Thunder Bubble. In this level, the player is granted a Drug of Thunder. If the player collects this Drug, they are given the ability to fire the Thunder Bubble instead of regular ones, which can be used to damage the boss.
Difficulty: Hard
In this level, we can find this boss:
| Sprite | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
 |
Super Drunk | Super Drunk will move around the room in a diagonal pattern, changing direction upon hitting a wall. Super Drunk also goes intermittently hurling out waves of whiskey bottles that damage the player if they make contact. |
And these special bubbles:
| Sprite | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
 |
Thunder Bubble | Thunder Bubbles release a small bolt of lightning that travels across the screen dealing damage to the enemies. |
Gameplay
The main goal of the original game is to progress through all the 100 levels without dying and finally defeat Super Drunk, the main villain, to rescue the girlfriends of the protagonists.
Mechanics
Movement
In this game, the player is able to move and jump on platforms and shoot bubbles at the enemies to defeat them. The player is able to jump on the bubbles it shoots to get access to higher platforms that were unreachable with a normal jump.
Enemies' movement
There are multiple enemies in the game, but their movement is fairly similar, they walk or move back and forth until they run into the player, where they start their attack sequence, like the Zen-Chan, the Maita, the Invader, or the Drunk. There are some bosses in the game, in our interpretation, we will include the Super Drunk boss, where it moves diagonally, bouncing on the walls until the player is close enough to start its attack.
Damaging the enemies
The player's only way to defeat the enemies is to shoot bubbles at them. After shooting an enemy with a bubble, the enemy gets trapped in it, and the player has to burst through the bubble to finally defeat the enemy, or else it will release from the bubble after some time.
After the player bursts through the bubble containing an enemy, the bubble will leave behind an item that is worth a certain score to the player, in some levels, defeating all the enemies makes a rare item appear, that usually grants the player a high amount of score.
Extend Bubbles will spawn if the player defeats two or more enemies at once by trapping them in bubbles and popping them simultaneously. Extend Bubbles are bubbles containing letters that spell the word "EXTEND", after all 6 Extend Bubbles are popped, the player will receive an extra life after a short cutscene.
If there is only one last enemy standing, this enemy will get angry, making it turn red and move faster.
If the player takes too long to finish a level, the message "Hurry up!" will appear on the screen, making the player know that they should finish the level soon, defeating all the enemies on screen. After the message has appeared on the screen, the enemies get angry, making them turn red and move faster. If the level is not beaten soon after the enemies got angry, an invincible enemy will appear, going after the player until they lose a life or defeat all the enemies. This enemy is the Skel-Monsta.
| Sprite | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
 |
Skel-Monsta | These enemies appear after the player takes too long to complete a level after the message "Hurry up!" alert text appears. They are invincible, and they won't stop going after the player until they lose a life or defeat all the enemies. |
Bubbles and special bubbles
Throughout the game, the player is able to shoot bubbles to attack the enemies, but sometimes, special bubbles have unique abilities that make the level easier, damaging the enemies faster, or completely flooding the platforms sweeping them away. In the game, there are 4 special bubbles:
| Sprite | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Thunder Bubble | Thunder Bubbles release a small bolt of lightning that travels across the screen dealing damage to the enemies. |
|
Water Bubble | Water Bubbles release a torrent of water that travels down across the platforms of the stage, sweeping away any enemies in its path and instantly defeating them. The player can also travel on the torrents of water created by Water Bubbles, but will not take any damage. |
 |
Fire Bubble | Fire Bubbles release a flame that falls downwards, spreading into a carpet of fire across the ground after it makes contact. Any enemies that walk across the flames will instantly be defeated. The fire will not damage the player, but they will not be able to move for several seconds after making contact with the flames. |
 |
Special Bubble | Special Bubbles replace the player's bubble shooting ability with a set number of fireballs that defeat enemies on contact. These special bubbles are really rare, with them only having a 0.02% (1 in 4096 special bubbles) chance of appearing. |
Power-ups
Along with the four different special bubbles the player can obtain, there are also multiple power-ups that the player can obtain by completing certain conditions during the game, these power-ups can affect the player's speed, the bubble's speed and firing rate, skip certain stages, etc. These are some of them:
Power-ups that affect the players:
| Sprite | Name | Description | Condition |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
Shoes | Increases the player's movement speed. | Appears after the player has walked the equivalent distance of the width of the screen 15 times. |
 |
Umbrellas | Allows the player to skip some levels. There are multiple variants: orange, red and purple, that make the player skip 3, 5 or 7 stages respectively. | Appears after popping 15 / 20 / 25 Water Bubbles respectively. |
 |
Rings | Gives the player some points after every step they take. There are multiple variants: crystal, ruby and amethyst, that make the player gain 10, 100 or 500 points every step respectively. | Appears after collecting 3 blue, pink or yellow candies, respectively. |
Power-ups that affect the bubbles:
| Sprite | Name | Description | Condition |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
Candies | There are 3 types of candy that affect the bubbles. Pink candies extend the distance that the bubbles can travel, blue candies increase the speed of the bubbles, and finally yellow candies increase the firing rate of the bubbles. | Pink candies appear after shooting 35 or more bubbles. Blue candies appear after popping 35 or more bubbles. Yellow candies appear after jumping 35 or more times. |
 |
Cross of Fire | Gives the player the ability to shoot fireballs that eliminate enemies on contact. The effect ends after 16 fireballs have been shot. | Appears after eliminating 5 enemies with Water Bubbles. |
Power-ups that affect the stage, making it a bonus stage:
| Sprite | Name | Description | Condition |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
Orange Holy Water | Turns the level into a bonus level by filling the stage with orange flowers. | Appears after falling off the bottom of the screen and coming out the top 15 times. |
 |
Red Holy Water | Turns the level into a bonus level by filling the stage with red flowers. | Appears after falling off the bottom of the screen and coming out the top 16 times. |
 |
Green Holy Water | Turns the level into a bonus level by filling the stage with clovers. | Appears after falling off the bottom of the screen and coming out the top 17 times. |
 |
Yellow Holy Water | Turns the level into a bonus level by filling the stage with rainbows. | Appears after falling off the bottom of the screen and coming out the top 18 times. |
 |
Purple Holy Water | Turns the level into a bonus level by filling the stage with music notes. | Appears after falling off the bottom of the screen and coming out the top 19 times. |
Bonus levels
Bonus levels flood the stage with special items that the player has to collect in a certain amount of time to get an additional score multiplier. According to the amount of items the player has collected in the time the bonus level is active, that number will be multiplied by 500, giving the player a large amount of score to increase the highscore.
Progression
Normally, arcade games do not have any type of checkpoints in the levels, meaning that you have to start the game all over again if you are defeated. Being that Bubble Bobble is an arcade game, this also is true, making it really challenging to progress through all the 100 levels that it offers without being defeated.
Score & Lives
When the player defeats an enemy, the exploded bubble will leave behind an item that is worth a certain amount of score, this item will move to a random point on the level, forcing the player to get to this item's position if they want to increase their highscore.
In some levels, bonus items will appear after defeating all the enemies. Bonus items usually are worth a higher amount of score than normal items, but eliminating players can also make rare items appear, that are worth a lot of score, so it's very important to go after the items left behind by the bubbles after eliminating enemies.
In Bubble Bobble, the player starts with 3 lives, these lives can be lost if the player is attacked by an enemy. After losing a life, the player will respawn in the start position of the level, having a couple of seconds of invincibility, letting the player move to a safer place or defeating all the enemies at once if possible.
The player is also able to gain extra lives after collecting all 6 EXTEND Bubbles.
Controls
The original arcade machine containing Bubble Bobble has 4 control inputs for each player, these are:
- Joystick: The joystick's purpose is to control the horizontal movement of the players.
- Bubble button: The bubble button allows the players to shoot bubbles to attack the enemies.
- Jump button: The jump button allows the players to jump vertically.
- Start: This button allows the player to start the game.