The HTML5 game above can only be played on a PC, so if you're on a smartphone or tablet then please accept my apologies.
The idea of Bubble Bobble is to blow bubbles and aim them towards your enemies to capture them. You control just one dragon on each level and you'll need to get in close range to your enemies for the bubble to capture them, otherwise it will just float away. Bubbles with captured enemies will float to the top of the screen and you will need to jump up to burst them and receive you rewards.
Controls: Use Z to jump and X to shoot. Use your arrow keys to move your dragon.
Bubble Bobble was developed by Taiti and released into the arcades in 1986, before being ported to popular home computers and consoles. The game's creator, Fukio Mitsuji, also created Rainbow Islands (1987), Sylvalion (1988) and Volfied (1989). He sadley died on December 11th 2008.
At first glace, Bubble Bobble seems like just another standard platform game, and the programmers tasked with creating the conversions initially thought they had a pretty easy job on their hands. However, they quickly realised that it was pretty superior to many of the other platform games around at the time, and there were lots of sprites on the screen at the same time. I would imagine that the 8-bit conversions were pretty challenging to create, as the game was far from being a straightforward platformer.
None of the ports are faithful reproductions of the 100 level arcade game due to the hardware limitations of the 8-bit machines. The Sega Master System which version which was developed by Taito themselves is, not surprisingly, the most authentic conversion.
Original promotional flyer by (c) Taito
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