One Quarter.
One Insatiable Hunger for Bubblegum.
Bubblegum Spin is a tactical bubble shooting
game to be played at your own pace. How large
of a bubble will you blow?
Rules
-
Match three or more gumballs
of the same color to remove
them from the sticky mass. -
Unmatching gumballs that are
unrooted will also be removed. -
Remove all the gumballs
to move to the next round. -
If the sticky mass touches
the edge, it's GAME OVER! -
After every four misses, you
will be punished. -
Don't dawdle! Each punishment hurts
more than the last. - Your score is multiplied by the
number of colors currently in play.
Controls
- ⬅️/➡️: aim
- ⬆️: return aimer to upright position
- X or ❎: fire
- Z or 🅾️: hold to preview your next gumballs and view your shot counter.
Changelog
1.1
- Added a score multiplier that corresponds with the number of colors in play.
- After round five, each new round will punish your misses slightly more.
This is a great implementation of the mechanics! But I am not sure this rotating randomizes or gives more control. Have to play more, the game is good!
My Highscore was 59700 and I played for ~15 minutes.
I really enjoyed this! I used to play a flash version of this game several years ago, so it's very cool to see it so well implemented in pico-8! Yours definitely has the better graphics - I love the gumball theme and the animations.
I did find the spinning to be a little unpredictable at times though, sometimes a shot would barely move things and other times it would send it spinning wildly despite shooting similar shots. I guess this is something I could get used to in time, if intended, but it did feel a little bit like a bug at first.
Really looking forward to playing more!
Edit:
Came back and got a better score (725750) in about 25 minutes of play. One thing I noticed is that it is possible to exploit the scoring system by simply missing on purpose once only 1-2 colours remain in the pool and letting the balls build up before knocking them off for large combos. I don't know if you want to reward this strategy or not, but if not I would suggest changing the score amount to scale down based on how many colours are 'active' (ie in the new ball pool). So for example when there are only 1-2 colours available each ball cleared will be worth less than when there are 4-5 colours available. This would make later stages worth more points and discourage 'cheesing' the end of a stage to farm more points.
I got 59110 and really enjoyed it! I'll probably come back and play it more when I have the time.
@maleficmax Did you notice that you can preview your next 2 gumballs? And that you can bounce shots off of walls? I think the fun is in knowing what shots you want to make one and two turns in advance and positioning the board to make those future shots possible. Do I take the high risk shot for high reward or do I play it safe to set myself up for success later on? I love that stuff.
@historymaker118 Thanks for the feedback! I was aware of the scoring exploit you mention. I also thought of solving it by ramping up the difficulty more rapidly and forcing players out of the round sooner, but it seemed too devastating to more casual players. I've gone the route you suggest instead. So the more colors there are in play, the higher the score multiplier is. I figure that buffing in the inverse of our situation and then removing the buff feels more rewarding than slashing the score even though it's effectively the same.
Regarding your physics observation, the amount of force applied to the gumball mass is relative to the number of balls. So when there are fewer balls, a shot made at the same angle will move it quite a lot more. Is this what you're referring to?
Well this is great. Cute, endlessly playable and with great physics. Thanks for making and sharing it!
@carldavis Shucks! I have no idea how to recreate that bug. If I find a solution, you'll be the first to hear about it.
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