Game Jam 84: Bubbles => BUBBLE TROUBLES

INTRODUCING Bubble Troubles build and developed for the Mini Jam 84: Bubbles event. The jam began july 9th, 2021 at midnight where an imposed limitation was revealed. The limitation for this event was your player must be their attack. At the time of the reveal I still hadn't decided on a direction. My girlfriend suggested I go against the grain and do a covid related social bubble themed game. I toyed with the idea but ultimatelly decided on an endless floater style game.

Before starting production I did some quick research on bubbles. Main take aways were the prism effect while interacting with light and that they can pop. I'm particularily pleased with the bubble effect as they travel over different background colours. My main focus while building this game was for it to be cross-platform(mobile, browser, windows). For it to have simple controls. For it to have an element of competition. For it to meet the required theme and limitation.

For the most part the cross platform element was taken care of by Unity, requiring minor tweaks to the UI to adapt. I chose a mixture of simple keyboard and optional onscreen joystick for controls to keep it simple to play on multiple platforms. I at first intended to incorporate a global highscore element to take care of the competition aspect, but feel short of time after spending a few hours setting it up. I abandoned the global aspect for an instance depend local highscore. So although I didn't get the element of competition I originally had wanted, I'm satisfied with the outcome.

In terms of meeting the required limitation, this element came straight from my "research" into bubbles. Bubbles need soap and water to form, from this came the idea of a duel element attack system. If you have no water, you're vulnerable. If you have no soap, you're vulnerable.

Most of the game mechanics are structured by faux randomness. An enemy will spawn every so often. Same goes for the clouds. I had wanted to incorporate some unique visuals, this need was satisfied through use of the scrolling background. If I had more time and bandwidth I would have used many more of these.

CONTROLS:

Keyboard

  >> "W" or "UP ARROW" => Move Bubble Up

  >> "D" or "RIGHT ARROW" => Move Bubble Right

  >> "A" or "LEFT ARROW" => Move Bubble Left

  >> "S" or "DOWN ARROW" => Move Bubble Down

Virtual Joystick

Use your thumb or mouse to control virtual joystick in the lower left hand portion of the screeen. The joystick will appear when you touch the screen and move the bubble in the chosen direction.