Puzzle Bobble (also known in the United States, Canada, and sometimes in Europe as Bust-a-Move) is an arcade puzzle game series created by Taito and contains elements of Sega's Columns and Atari's Breakout.
At the top of the rectangular playing arena, a number of bubbles of various colours are placed in a prearranged pattern at the start of the level. At the bottom of the screen, the player controls the angle of a fixed cannon that fires semi-randomly coloured bubbles in a straight line. The bubbles, when fired, travel in straight lines, possibly bouncing off the side walls of the arena, before eventually coming to rest either touching one or more of the existing bubbles, or at the top of the arena.
If the bubble manages to come into contact with identically coloured bubbles, forming a group of three or more, those bubbles, and any bubbles hanging only from them, are removed from the field of play, and points are awarded depending on how many bubbles are removed from the screen at once.
An exponential scoring system is used, leading to large rewards for removing many bubbles at once.
As the game proceeds, the top of the playing arena, and all the bubbles, move down the screen after a certain number of bubbles has been fired. The player must remove every bubbles from the arena before any pass a line at the bottom of the arena. Bubbles will fire automatically if the player remains idle.
As well as typically cute Japanese animation (the characters from Bubble Bobble operate the cannon) and music, the game's mechanics and level design were beautifully balanced, and the game was terrifically successful at the arcades, spawning several sequels.
One or two players can play the game. In the single-player puzzle game, the goal is simply to clear the arena of bubbles. The two player game pits two players against each other. Both players have an arena each (both visible on screen) and an identical arrangement of coloured bubbles in each arena. When a player removes a large group (four bubbles or more) some of thoes removed are transferred to the opponent's arena, usually frustrating his efforts at trying to remove all the bubbles from the arena. In some non-arcade versions, the two player game can also be played by one player against a computer opponent.
Some animations of Bub and Bob are based on the original Bubble Bobble arcade game, except Bub and Bob are larger than they were in Bubble Bobble. (Their signs are the same size.) This note only applies to inserting coins in the middle of the game (if a dip switch was set to have "intrude play" enabled), as well as losing a game.
