Getting the bubbles ready…
Drag to aim, release to shoot. Tap the next ball to swap. ← → aim · Shift for fine aim · Space shoot · X swap · Escape cancel · B orb
In Bubble Shooter the shots that pay are the ones that cut a cluster loose, where three matching balls burst and every bubble that was hanging from them falls too, whatever its colour. This version has three ways to play. Above is 100 designed levels with a fixed set of balls, Below is 150 levels under a ceiling that keeps coming down, and Endless is a single long climb that lasts as long as your shots do. There is no timer anywhere, so you can line up every shot.
Each ball you shoot sticks in the honeycomb of bubbles wherever it lands. If it touches two or more bubbles of its own colour, that whole group bursts, and any bubbles that were hanging on only through the group lose their support and fall off the board with it. A level is won once the board is clear, or in rescue levels once every star is free.
A dotted guide shows the whole path of the shot, including every bounce off the side walls, ending in a faint ball in the exact cell where it will stick. An angle with no reachable landing cell is refused with "That angle is blocked. Aim at another gap." and costs nothing, and a ball also cannot squeeze through a gap narrower than itself.
After any burst, every bubble that no longer connects to the ceiling (or to a cloud, in boards that have them) falls off the board, whatever its colour. The side walls hold nothing up. Each bubble that bursts scores 10 points and each one that falls scores 20, so a drop is worth twice as much per bubble. Burst a three-ball neck holding up fifteen others and you collect 30 points for the match and 300 for the fall.
The launcher shows the ball you are about to fire and, beside it, the next one. Tap the next ball or press X to swap the two. Swapping is free and you can do it as often as you like, so you always have a choice of two colours for each shot.
| Above | Below | Endless | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Length | 100 levels in four worlds | 150 levels in six caves | One run, region after region |
| Shots | Set number per level | No limit | 24 to start, +2 bubbles give two back |
| Ball order | Fixed, so a retry is the same puzzle | Random each retry | Colours near where you are playing |
| Special bubbles | Yes, one new kind at a time | None | Yes, arriving by region |
| Pressure | Shot count and the danger line | A ceiling that keeps dropping | Shot count and the danger line |
The Above levels climb through four worlds, Garden, Storm & Thaw, Cloud Isles and Sky. Every level has a set number of shots, shown in the launcher, and a fixed order of balls, so Restart replays exactly the same puzzle. The goal is to clear every bubble or, in rescue levels, to free every star-marked bubble, counted on the board as ★ rescued/total, and finishing on your last ball still counts. You lose when the shots run out first or a bubble reaches the dashed danger line above the launcher.
From level 5 the maps are taller than the screen, and the rest of the board slides down into view as you clear space below it. A colour that has disappeared from the whole remaining map, hidden rows included, is skipped in the ball order without costing a shot. The levels add one idea at a time, and the first level with something new opens with a short card explaining it.
Below goes down through six caves, Rootways, Crystal Caves, Old Mine, Glow Lake, Magma and The Core. There is no shot limit and there are no special bubbles, and the only goal is to clear the board before it reaches the fail line, because the ceiling comes down as you shoot. In levels 1 to 100 the rows alternate 8 and 7 cells and the ceiling drops a full row every 8 shots. From level 101 the rows widen to 12 and 11 cells and the ceiling comes down by half a row after every fifth shot. Inside the launcher, a small arrow and a number tell you how many shots remain until the next drop. Some Below levels have eight colours, where pearl and graphite join the usual six. The layouts of its first 100 levels are taken from Frozen Bubble, an open-source game credited further down this page, while levels 101 to 150 were made for this site.
An Endless run starts with 24 shots. Every shot uses one, while a +2 bubble you burst or drop gives two back, even on your last ball. Three regions are stacked above you at any time. Clear one and another is added on top without a break, while your score, shots and charge carry on. The run ends when the shots run out or a bubble reaches the danger line, and the final card shows your score and the region you reached. Your best score and farthest region are kept.
Endless also has the charge orb. Every bubble you drop adds to its charge, and twelve fill it. When it is full, tap it beside the launcher or press B, aim, and fire to blast two rings of bubbles around the landing cell, stones included, so anything left hanging falls. Firing it uses one shot and keeps both of your coloured balls for the following shots.
These appear in Above and Endless, while Below has only plain colours.
| Bubble | What it does |
|---|---|
| Stone | Cannot be matched. It falls like anything else once nothing holds it up. |
| Star | A normal coloured bubble with a star; burst it or drop it to rescue it. |
| Bomb | Land any colour next to it and it blasts the ring of cells around it, stones included, setting off any bomb caught in the blast. |
| Lightning | Land any colour next to it and it clears its whole row. |
| Ice | Make a match next to it and it thaws into that colour, ready to be matched by a later shot. A blast destroys it outright. |
| +2 | Burst or drop it for two extra shots. |
| Rainbow ball | A ball in your launcher that takes the colour of the largest group it would join where it lands, preferring a crystal it touches. |
| Key and lock | Burst or drop a numbered key and every lock with the same number opens. Locked bubbles cannot be matched or blasted, but they still hold up the bubbles hanging from them. |
| Cloud | Holds up a cluster the way the ceiling does. Land any colour next to it to remove the cloud, and whatever depended on it falls. |
| Crystal | Land beside it: a different colour dyes the crystal, while the same colour bursts it together with its connected group, with no minimum of three. |
When your ball sets off a bomb, lightning, a cloud or a crystal, the ball itself is used up and does not stay on the board. Bombs and lightning that fall instead of being triggered do nothing. While you aim at one of these, solid outlines mark what will burst, dashed outlines with small arrows mark what will fall, and a line of text explains the effect.
Look up before you look at colours. A large group often hangs from the ceiling by two or three bubbles of a different colour, and bursting those makes the whole group drop, scoring far more than matching its lowest balls one colour at a time. In Above, where shots are limited, those drops also save shots you would otherwise spend clearing the group piece by piece.
Keep the edges usable. A bank shot is often the only way to reach a support near the ceiling behind a wall of other colours, and it only works while there is a lane along the side wall. Filling the edge rows with stray balls closes those lanes.
In Below, count down with the launcher. When the arrow shows one or two shots left, deal with the lowest bubbles first, because the whole board is about to move one step closer to the fail line. In Endless, +2 bubbles are your lifeline, so go after them early, while you still have shots to spare, and save the charge orb for a cluster you cannot otherwise reach or a stone that is holding up a large group.
Above's 100 levels and Below's levels 101–150 are this site's own; the layouts of Below's levels 1–100 come from the open-source game Frozen Bubble.
They are included under the GPL in their original order and layout, in our colours. The original level file, the licence text and the level data as we use it are linked below.
Getting the bubbles ready…
Drag to aim, release to shoot. Tap the next ball to swap. ← → aim · Shift for fine aim · Space shoot · X swap · Escape cancel · B orb