Hit enter to start. Use left / right key to move your bubble canon, space to fire. Shoot the balls in pairs of 3 to score. 

Puzzle Bobble (also known in certain countries as Bust-a-Move) is a 1994 arcade puzzle game (for 1 or 2 players) created by Taito and contains elements of Sega's Columns and Atari's Breakout.

The game was based on Taito's popular 1986 arcade game Bubble Bobble, featuring characters and themes from the original. The game's characteristically "cute" Japanese animation and music, along with its well-balanced mechanics and level design, proved successful in arcades and spawned several sequels.

Gameplay

At the start of each round, the rectangular playing arena contains a prearranged pattern of coloured "bubbles". (These are actually referred to in the translation as 'balls'; however, they were clearly intended to be bubbles, since they pop, and are taken from Bubble Bobble.) At the bottom of the screen, the player controls a device called a "pointer", which aims and fires bubbles up the screen. The colour of bubbles fired is randomly generated and chosen from the colours of bubbles still left on the screen.

The fired bubbles travel in straight lines (possibly bouncing off the side walls of the arena), stopping when they touch other bubbles, or reach the top of the arena. If a bubble touches identically-coloured bubbles, forming a group of three or more, those bubbles — as well as any bubbles hanging only from them — are removed from the field of play, and points are awarded.

After every few shots, the 'ceiling' of the playing arena drops downwards slightly, along with all the bubbles stuck to it. (The number of shots in between the ceiling dropping is influenced by the number of bubble colours left on the screen.) The closer the bubbles get to the bottom of the screen, the faster the music plays and if they cross the line at the bottom then the player dies and the game is over.

The objective of the game is to clear all the bubbles from the arena without dying. Bubbles will fire automatically if the player remains idle. After clearing the arena, the next round begins with a new pattern of bubbles to clear. The game has 30 rounds in total.

Connections with Bubble Bobble

The characters and theme of the game are based on the 1986 platform arcade game Bubble Bobble. A remix of the original Bubble Bobble music is played in the game's end credits.

The two dinosaurs operating the pointer are called Bub and Bob (or Bubblun and Bobblun in Japan). Their graphics and animation are based directly on the original Bubble Bobble, only larger (very similar to Bubble Symphony which was released the same year as Puzzle Bobble). Less obvious is the fact that Puzzle Bobble also features all the enemies from Bubble Bobble, which are trapped inside the bubbles and fly out when the bubbles pop. Inspecting the bubbles closely, one can see the enemies twitching inside the bubbles.