Warlike Bubbles

You may know it as Snoods, Bust-a-Move, Puzzle Bobble, Dynomite or Yeti Bubbles, among dozens of other names. Regardless, it is one of the most successful casual games of the last decade. And whether you must use bubbles, eggs, smileys or bombs, the goal of the game is the same: shoot colored objects into the game area so as to create same-colored clusters and clear the screen before it fills up. And while there may be a game or two of the type that offer indirect competition via a split screen, there is no real competitive head-to-head offering taking advantage of this popular gameplay type.

A true multiplayer Bust-a-Move can have each player control his own launcher at opposite ends of the game window. A wall of bubbles (or the round object of your choice) seperates the launchers at the center of the window. As the wall slowly grows from the inside out (new bubbles appearing in the center and pushing the outer bubbles outwards), the players compete to shoot and remove colored clusters. In addition to cutting down at the wall and earning points for removing bubbles, as each player clears clusters the wall's center is pushed towards the other player. The larger the cluster removed, the stronger the push is. The winner is the player to push the wall all the way up to his opponent's launcher, "suffocating" him.

Some possible extras:

• Add some physics, a-la Splume.


• Have power-ups appear from time to time inside random bubbles. The player who removes those bubbles wins a special effect of limited duration. Power-up examples: getting an aiming line for easier shooting, faster firing, two-colored bubbles, wind that slowly pushes the wall towards the opponent.