Bubble Bobble FAQ Version 1.0 ----------------------------- Welcome to my first attempt at a FAQ. It's on one of the best puzzle games ever written. Contact me ghall@gil.com.au if you have anything to add. What is Bubble Bobble ? ----------------------- Bubble Bobble was an arcade game released by Taito in 1986. You have to guide the two hero's Bub and Bob through 100 levels of adventure to rescue their girlfriends. It was one of the first two player co-operation games (although all co-operation goes out the window when a 50,000 pt diamond goes down the middle of the screen and you race to see who can get the points first ). It was one of the first games to have joystick combinations that allow you to power-up your original characters. It has spawned a couple of sequels Rainbow Islands ( a much better, but harder to find game ) Bubble Symphony, Parasol Stars, Bust-a-Move (aka Puzzle Bobble), and Bust-A-Move Again (aka Puzzle Bobble 2). Bubble Bobble gameplay ---------------------- One of the great things about this game was all of the different hidden things that were discovered by playing the game. Basically you had to clear each room of all the enemy to let you advance to the next room. You did this by trapping the enemy inside you bubbles and then bursting the bubbles. Along the way you could pick up power ups and extra weapons that were only available for that room. As a rule only one food bonus and one weapon bonus per room. The basic power-ups are as follows :- Yellow bubblegum-increase bubble firing speed. Purple bubblegum- make the bubble travel further. Blue bubblegum-increase the bubble speed across screen. Red shoe-faster moving Bub and Bob. Other special power-ups are :- Candy canes-when the last enemy is killed all remaining bubbles turn into fruit aswell as a large bonus from 10,000 to 70,000 pts. Treasure chest-similar effect to candy canes except diamonds fall. Clock/Watch-stops level timer and changes screen color. Red trophy- give you all the basic power-ups. Purple trophy-smart bomb, kills all enemy and turns them into diamonds. Blue trophy-gives you extra points when you run along the ground. Purple bomb-kills all enemy and turns them into diamonds. Blue cross-fills the screen with water and turns enemy into diamonds. Red cross-lets you shoot fireballs and turn the enemy into diamonds. Yellow cross-causes lightning to come down the screen and turns enemy into diamonds. Bomb-kills all enemy on screen. Blue umbrella-advance three rooms. Yellow umbrella-advance five rooms. Purple umbrella-advance seven rooms. Diamond necklace-releases a ball that flies around the screen and turns enemy into diamonds. Red Ring-gives you 100 pts forevery bubble blown. Silver Ring-creates a stream of stars that kill all enemy. Blue Ring-gets points while running around. Purple Ring-gives you 500 pts every time you jump. Bible/Book-smart bomb kills all enemy and turns intodiamonds. Glowing love heart-enemy freeze and you can run into them. Potions-fill the screen with various items,collect all of these for a 100,000 pt bonus usually you share them if there is an equal number (grin) Doorways-These appear if you can get to level 20, 30, and 40 without losing a man.Puts you in a bonus room full of diamonds. Getting to level 50 without dying advances you to level 70. Fireball bubble-A very rare occurrence, gives you fireballs instead of bubbles for five rooms. Fire Bubble-hop on this to make fire fall to the ground and kill enemy. Lightning Bubble-Fires lightning across the screen opposite to the way you are facing. Bell- Activates alarm that will warn the player that a secret weapon is about to appear (good for all subsequent levels and the rest of the game, regardless if the player dies). Skull-Turns the enemies fast and nasty. How to make the letters appear ------------------------------ 1. EXTEND-bubbles appear only on "open levels" (levels where bubbles fly in from a "hole" in the ceiling or the bottom) 2. EXTEND-bubbles appear only when you've popped in the previous non-open-stages more than 2 (or 3) enemy-trapped-bubbles at once. The more enemies popped at once, the more DIFFERENT EXTEND-bubbles will come. (I'm sure this is valid for ALL previous stages up to an "open-level"; I hope I've described that well!) It goes something like this: Enemies popped at a time Different EXTEND-bubbles to come 2 none 3 1 4 2 5 3 6 4 7 5 8 ALL! (6) 3. When you're on an "open stage" you may want to try to pop more than 3 enemies at a time because the upper table applies to the CURRENT stage, too (if it is an "open stage" that is). Secrets and hidden stuff ------------------------ These codes must be entered on the title screen showing Bubble Bobble written inside a cloud. LEFT JUMP LEFT 1P LEFT BUBBLE LEFT 1P- it will say power up at the bottom of the screen and you will have fast feet, fast bubbles, etc BUBBLE JUMP BUBBLE JUMP BUBBLE JUMP RIGHT 1P-the screen will say original game mode and you will get the bonus doors whether you die or not. 1P JUMP BUBBLE LEFT RIGHT JUMP 1P RIGHT-this give you super on the title screen. You play the game with the monsters from the first 50 screens in the last 50 and visa-versa. High score table tricks ----------------------- When you enter your name in the high score table put in SEX and a sound will be made and the word SEX will change to H.! . On the following game a pitchfork will appear as the second item on the first level, get this and fruit will fall from the sky and kill the enemy. Make sure you don't bubble them up so they can be hit by the falling fruit, also the bell sound will happen more often throughout the game. Entering MTJ as your initials will bring up a coke can as the second item , this will make flowers fall out of the sky and change the enemy into diamonds worth 6,000 pts. Other initials to try are NSO KIM YSH KTU SAK TOP HED RYO SKE SAN PAN OTO, these are all initials of the people whose names come up when you finish the game. Other tricks and tips --------------------- The tips below were sent to me from the various people listed at the bottom of this FAQ This is one of the coolest cheats in Bubble Bobble. You get this if you lose your last dino in a treasure room. Normally, you only get treasure rooms if you have reached levels 20, 30 and 40 without dying, and you exit a treasure room if you die once, so the only way to do this is if you are using the "original game" cheat that gives you treasure rooms anyway. When you lose your last dino in a treasure room, your level is recorded as 102, and then all the demo screens turn to treasure rooms and the next game you play you get a treasure room on level 1! This tip cones from Star Tech Journal 12/93. Each of the three Diamond Rooms contains an encrypted message which is a hint towards properly finishing the game ("Having a TRUE and HAPPY Ending"). The message can be decrypted by copying down both the message and the larger block of symbols. The larger block of symbols is the alphabet, starting with A, B, C, D... The gateway on level 50 takes you directly to level 80. The code is Bubble, Jump, Bubble, Jump, Bubble, Jump, Right, 1 Player. When done correctly the game momentarily will display the words "Original Game" in blue in the bottom left hand of the screen. Super Bubble Bobble Trick - This will make the game start on the second 100 rounds. The second 100 rounds (which must be played as a separate game) are basically the layouts of the first 100 rounds, with the bad guys from the second 50 rounds on the first 50 rounds, and visa-versa. You must play these second 100 rounds in order to have a "True and Happy Ending". The code is 1 Player, Jump, Bubble, Left, Right, Jump, 1 Player, Right. When done correctly, the game will now display and additional graphic, which says "SUPER" on the top left portion of the graphic that is the "Bubble Bobble Screen". It will continue to do this every time this screen comes up in attract mode until someone inserts a coin and plays the game. Also, the fruit bonus is *not* random. If the hundreds and tens digits are the same when you kill the last enemy, all bubbles on the screen turn into fruit (the higher the level the higher fruit value). A nice trick here: Have one player ready to pop the last enemies, and have the other player shoot bubbles into a wall until the digits match... THEN have the first player kill them. You see, the game doesn't care WHOSE digits match - could be either. Bonus fruit on every round! >:) Let yourself die on your last man in the treasure room (wait and a guy will come out to kill you -- one of the strangest looking creatures in the whole game!). To do this, you'll need to use the ORIGINAL GAME option of course. Now, the following will happen: -- The demo screens will be treasure rooms. The spooky treasure room music will play during demo sessions. -- The "highest level attained during the day" demo screen will be off the scale at 102! -- Next game played will give you a treasure room on level 1. When time runs out, and the skels come out to get you, if you die, when you're brought back to life, and STILL FLASHING (vital!), run over and touch your friend's skel. POOF! No more skel. True ending to this game. ------------------------- I believe the true ending to this game will only be seen when a game is completed with one player never losing a life so you get all of the treasure rooms. There is a hint at the end of the game " Write 8 big words on a paper " I believe this refers to all 8 treasure rooms. In Rainbow Islands if get a diamond on all of the island you get a different ending to the normal one , so I believe Bubble Bobble to be the same. Or this, The above paragraph mentions the secret message "Write 8 big words on a paper" -- if you are referring to the message after the first 100 levels (i.e. not the Super Bubble Bobble), then this message does not refer to 8 treasure rooms -- it is referring to the code that is being displayed along with this message. You'll notice that the code is in the same "language" as the special language found in the treasure room walls. When translated, they come out to $JBLRJ$R -- which means: Start, Jump, Bubble, Left, Right, Jump, Start, Right -- which is the code for the Super Bubble Bobble game -- the message is kind of cryptic -- I guess they were telling you to expand the 8 letters into (bigger) words. Bubble Bobble or Bobble Bobble ------------------------------ Bubble Bobble is the original version of the game and Bobble Bobble is the pirate copy, if you look at the cloud in the background you can see the bad job they did of hacking the graphics. There is also some variation in game play. On my board you can choose a Japanese version of the game that comes up with a copyright notice at the beginning or an English version of the game. There is no difference in the gameplay. On the original board you can switch between BB and Super BB. I have played a version where you could pick original on the board and on level 6 , and subsequent levels, the guys in the white robes will roll rocks at you. There seems to be many variations of this game. Other platforms --------------- Bubble Bobble is available on the Apple II, IBM, Atari ST, C64/128, Amiga, Gameboy, Game Gear, Playstation, Saturn, MSX and NES. Rainbow Islands is available on C64/128, Playstation, Saturn, NES and Amiga. Parasol Stars is available on C64/128, Turbo Grafx16/Turbo Express Gameboy and Amiga. Bust-a-Move (aka Puzzle Bobble) is available on Game Gear,SNES and Neo-Geo. Anyone wishing to play the above games on a PC, get yourself any of the good C64 emulators that are about and use a decent search engine to find a site to point you in the right direction of a source of software. Pinouts ------- SOLDER SIDE PARTS SIDE GND 01 GND VIDEO RED 02 VIDEO GND VIDEO GREEN 03 VIDEO BLUE VIDEO SYNC 04 -5V SOUND + 05 SOUND - POST 06 POST +12V 07 +12V COIN SWITCH A 08 COIN SWITCH B COIN METER A 09 COIN METER B COIN LOCKOUT A 10 COIN LOCKOUT B SERVICE SWITCH 11 TITLE SWITCH START PLAYER 1 12 START PLAYER 2 SPARE 13 SPARE SPARE 14 SPARE 1P RIGHT 15 2P RIGHT 1P LEFT 16 2P LEFT GND 17 GND GND 18 GND + 5V 19 + 5V + 5V 20 + 5V 1P BUBBLE 21 2P BUBBLE 1P JUMP 22 2P JUMP Dip Switches ------------ SWITCH A 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 GAME TYPE BUBBLE BOBBLE OFF SUPER BUBBLE BOBBLE ON SCREEN NORMAL OFF REVERSE ON MODE PLAY OFF TEST ON ATTRACT SOUND YES OFF NO ON COIN A 1 COIN 1 PLAY OFF OFF 1 COIN 2 PLAY ON OFF 2 COIN 1 PLAY OFF ON 2 COIN 3 PLAY ON ON COIN B 1 COIN 1 PLAY OFF OFF 1 COIN 2 PLAY ON OFF 2 COIN 1 PLAY OFF ON 2 COIN 3 PLAY ON ON SWITCH B 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 DIFFICULTY NORMAL OFF OFF EASY ON OFF HARD OFF ON VERY HARD ON ON BONUS 1ST/2ND 30000/100000 OFF OFF 20000/80000 ON OFF 40000/200000 OFF ON 50000/250000 ON ON LIVES 3 OFF OFF 5 (FREE PLAY) ON OFF 1 OFF ON 2 ON ON SPARE (ALWAYS OFF) OFF OFF Thanks to the following people ------------------------------ benic@netinfo.ubc.ca fnargle@primenet.com forego19@nwlink.com cch@cs.stir.ac.uk woodcock@nortel.com mgkkwok@acs.ucalgary.ca bryan.roth@cho.ge.com vecoven@montefiore.ulg.ac.be devo@UDel.Edu dbmayf@netcom.com wenzke@erinet.com WBNR80A@prodigy.com db@cho004.cho.ge.com dey@nevada.edu gkam@ca.newbridge.com davids@wolfenet.com ribbit@netcom.com sjaak@euronet.nl jond@videologic.com 102404.2065@CompuServe.COM richard.clark@welcom.gen.nz ashaw@gil.com.au jdokter@unlgrad1.unl.edu anastos@informatik.tu-muenchen.de rope@eskimo.com