What it was
Bub and Bob are two dragons, and their girlfriends have been taken into the Cave of Monsters. Each level is one screen with no scrolling. Blow a bubble, trap an enemy inside it, then burst the bubble by running into it, and the enemy drops to the floor as food worth points. Pop several at once and the food gets better. Clear every enemy and the next screen arrives.
There is more under that. Bubbles float, so you can ride them up to ledges you could not jump to. Fall through a gap in the floor and you drop back in from the top. Linger too long and the enemies turn pink and fast, and later an enemy you cannot kill comes looking for you. Collect the letters E, X, T, E, N, D and you earn a life and skip straight ahead. There are 100 levels, and a boss waits at the last.
Where it sits in history
Fukio Mitsuji designed it at Taito. He had joined the company thinking its games were weak and wanted to make one that was simply fun. He also wanted it to reach women, and couples who went to arcades together, so he built it around two players and chose bubbles from a list of more than 100 ideas, because he liked the thought of a screen full of them popping at once. Some enemies came from an older Taito game, Chack'n Pop.
The arcade game came out in Japan in June 1986 and became one of Taito's biggest hits; in the UK it was the top-grossing arcade game from April to June 1987. Taito brought it to the Famicom Disk System on 30 October 1987, then to the NES, reaching North America in November 1988 and PAL countries in October 1990. In 1996 Taito said the arcade source code had been lost, so every home version since has been rebuilt from an arcade board.
How it plays today
It is still a joy with a friend. The screens are short and readable, the music loops in your head for days, and the moment a chain of bubbles goes off at once is as good as Mitsuji hoped. Riding a bubble up the screen to reach a ledge never stops feeling clever.
Alone it is a decent puzzle-platformer. Together it is something better: you start splitting the screen, setting up kills for each other, and arguing over the food. It gets hard in the later levels, and the timer that turns enemies angry keeps you moving.
Compared with
Why it matters
Finish level 100 alone and the game will not give you the ending. It shows a hint instead: come back with your friend. Only two players together see Bub and Bob turn human and find the people they lost. Mitsuji built the whole game for couples, and he hid its heart where only a pair could reach it.
Goffman wrote that a game makes a shared little world, and that being absorbed in it together is what makes an encounter feel alive. Bubble Bobble agrees, and says so in its last screen: the point was never to win. It was to get there with someone.
Read: The second controller →
- Goffman, E. (1961). Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction ('Fun in Games').
What you're levelling up
You have been training these without noticing. Here is how to do it on purpose, and where it pays off away from the couch. All the skills games teach →
Teamwork
In the game. Alone it's decent. With two, you split the screen, set up kills for each other and argue over the food. The real ending needs a second player.
Do it on purpose. Play co-op and let your partner take the food every time you set up a kill. See what happens to the run.
Off the couch. The designer wanted couples to play together, and it works. Being the one who sets up the other person's win is a big part of being good to be with.
Spatial thinking
In the game. Bubbles float, so you ride them up to ledges you can't jump to. Fall through the floor and you drop back in from the top. The screen wraps, and you learn to use it.
Do it on purpose. On each new screen, plan one route using a bubble ride before you start. See if it works first go.
Off the couch. Seeing the second way round a problem, the back entrance, the other route home, is what makes you handy in a pinch.
Timing and rhythm
In the game. Linger too long and enemies turn pink and fast. Popping several bubbles at once for better food is all about when.
Do it on purpose. Trap three enemies before popping any, and pop them together. Practise until the chain goes off clean.
Off the couch. Asking for a second date while you're both still laughing, not after the bill has sat there for ten minutes. Same feel: not too early, not too late.
Verdict · 9/10
One of the best two-player games on the NES, and a designer's wish that couples would play together came true. Bring a friend; the real ending needs one.
