THE SPECTRUM GAME DATABASE BUBBLE BOBBLE PUBLISHER Firebird AUTHOR ? YEAR 1987 CATEGORY Arcade DESCRIPTION Bubble Bobble is a 2 player single screen Platform shoot'em'up and puzzle game. CONTROLS: Sinclair, Cursor or Kempston joysticks INSTRUCTIONS Bub and Bob are little dinosaurs who can blow bubbles and jump around a lot. The idea of the game is to jump around the screen catching the baddies in bubbles and then popping them, turning the baddies into fruit or other such pick-upable item. To catch a baddy inside a bubble, simply shoot the bubble into the baddy. The bubbles have limited range so you have to move in quite close. To pop the bubbles, simply walk into them or jump on top of them. If you take too long, the indestructable Baron Von-Blubba (?) would appear and kill you after a little chase around the screen. The only way to get rid of him is to complete the level.. or to die.. CHEATS When you pick up the umbrella and start to skip levels, pull RIGHT on the joystick. This *should* make you skip more levels than usual. Multiface pokes: Level n: 34313,n Immortal: 43835,150 43836,195 +2A/+3 owners may need to patch the game when loading in 128K mode: if you find that it crashes shortly after the controls have been selected, then, during control selection, poke 23399,4. SEQUELS Bubble Bobble was followed by two more games (Rainbow Islands and Parasol Stars) but only Rainbow Islands appeared on the Spectrum. There is also another game called New Zealand Story which is often associated with the games. SCORES RECEIVED Bubble Bobble scored 8/10 in Sinclair User. URL ftp://ftp.dcc.uchile.cl/pub/OS/sinclair/snapshots/b/????????.zip GENERAL FACTS The main characters, Bub and Bob, who were little dinosaur things obtained almost cult status and were in almost every single computer mag at the time. NOTES This is one of the best 2 player games for the spectrum, although playing 2 player on 2 sinclair joysticks on a +2 or +3 caused some control problems for player 2.