Parsing the C64 Bubble Bobble Wind Currents

In two player mode, still even today, C64 Bubble Bubble is one of the <i>best</i> casual games. I can sit down almost anyone on the couch and they&#x27;ll enjoy at least a few rounds, experienced video game players or not.<p>That the game design <i>and implementation</i> cuts through FOUR decades of time to be enjoyable says something. There are many old games which still are good but not as accessible to a modern audience.<p>There are even more old games which are impressive even in retrospect, but don&#x27;t play well today.

Nice analysis, and cool to see how simple it is to get quite a satisfying effect. Also quite fun to see that the level symmetry was indeed exploited multiple ways to save space. If the author is here, they write &#x27;&quot;@123&quot; are the first 4 entries in the default c64 character set&#x27; but likely meant @ABC.

Back in 1998, a level editor was made for the Arcade version of Bubble Bobble, named &quot;Patch-A-Bobble&quot;. This level editor revealed the directional airflow in the levels.

Haha, reminds me of a Windows utility I wrote a looong time ago called Patch-A-Bobble:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.romhacking.net&#x2F;utilities&#x2F;142&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.romhacking.net&#x2F;utilities&#x2F;142&#x2F;</a><p>It was a win32 app that would read all the graphics from the Bubble Bobble ROM itself, then let you edit the levels, save them, and patch the modified levels back into the ROM so that you could play them on MAME (or even put them in an arcade cabinet).<p>edit: Oh, I actually uploaded it to github: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;kstenerud&#x2F;patch-a-bobble">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;kstenerud&#x2F;patch-a-bobble</a>

I still love that game - and this is a thing of beauty. Thank you for sharing.

I remember the seventh row, third column board being annoyingly difficult for the C64 version.