Gameplay

This is a sub-page of Proto:Bubble Symphony (Arcade).

General#

• Players can't charge up their shots yet.
• The following bubble types are missing:

:*Wind Bubbles.

:*Melody Bubbles.

:*Special Bubbles.

:*"R", "O", and "D" bubbles.

• The human versions of the player characters are also missing.
• The rushing water from Water Bubbles advances every frame in the prototype. This was slowed down to once every 2 frames in the final version.
• Rainbow Bubbles are completely silent in the prototype.

Prototype	Final

• The game has a different subtitle in the prototype.
• The game's branching system only goes three branches deep in the prototype, which means only Rounds A through F are implemented.

After completing the third round, this screen will appear and the game will end.

• Rounds always have 10 stages in the prototype, while rounds in the final game can have as little as 7 or as many as 12 stages.

• Round A is a straightforward 10 stages in the prototype. To get the player acquainted with the game's branching path system, three doors were added to Round A-1. Each door leads to its own path with 6 stages each.
• There are no secret rooms in the prototype.
• In the final game only, after getting a game over, a power-up will spawn above the player's head as an incentive to continue. Collecting this power-up will give the player one of the three candy effects or a +1 speed increase like the Shoe.
• Getting a game over doesn't add a shame point to the player's score like it does in the final game.
• Players only have 10 seconds to continue compared to 20 seconds in the final game.

• When a player continues or joins a running game, their bubble dragon will do a cute "Thank you!" animation that lasts about 50 frames. This was removed from the final version, possibly to get players back into the game quicker.

Players#

• The stats for Bobblun and Kururun were adjusted in the final game:

:*Bobblun only has five total stat points compared to every other character's six. To bring him in line with the other bubble dragons, he was given an extra point in bubble speed.

:*Both of the female bubble dragons in the prototype have a movement stat of 1, while Bubblun and Bobblun have 2 and 3 respectively. To better average out the character's movement speed, and to better differentiate Kururun from Cororon, her movement and bubble speed stats were swapped.

• The movement stat affects the player's running speed and is capped at 6. The table below measures how fast the player moves in pixels per frame:

The effects of this stat are exponential in the prototype. Compared to the final game, players move more slowly at 1 and 2 movement, the same at 3 movement, and much faster at 4+ movement. The final version changes this to only add 0.25 pixels per frame for each stage.

• The movement stat does not affect the player's jumping speed in the prototype.
• The range stat affects the distance that bubbles travel when they're first blown out. The table below measures the distance in pixels:

Compared to the final game, bubbles don't go as far at 1 range, go equally as far at 2-3 range, and go further at 4+ range. At max range, they go 80 pixels further than in the final game; that's about a quarter of the screen!

• Players' jumps are floatier in the prototype, taking 26 frames to reach max height and 53 frames in total to complete a straight jump. This was reduced to 17 frames to reach max height and only 38 frames to complete a jump.
• Players can jump a single pixel higher in the prototype.
• The players' "floating" speed was changed from 1.125 pixels per frame in the prototype to 1.80 pixels per frame in the final version.
• Players can't hold Up or Down to alter their falling speed yet.

Difficulty#

The game's dynamic difficulty system is almost identical to the system used in the final game, with the following exceptions:

• There is no CooldownVar.
• Collecting a key does not increase Rank.

Items#

Point Items#

• The following monster drops are missing from the prototype:

Item
Value	7,000	6,000	10,000	8,000	1,000	8,000
Used in Final	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

• After all of the rounds were overhauled, the end-of-stage drops had to be changed as well. The only items that drop on the same stage in both versions are the Cherries in Round A-1.

	A-4	A-9	B-8	C-3	C-6	C-8	D-1	E-5	E-7	F-7
Item
Used in Final	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes

• These end-of-stage drops, each worth 700 points, aren't present in the prototype:

Item
Used in Final	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
Item
Used in Final	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Special Items#

• The following items are missing from the prototype:

Item	Condition	Effect
	Enter "BUNNY" on the high score screen.	At the end of the stage: All bubbles turn into 700 point Bunny Girls. A Big Bunny Girl worth 100,000 points drops down from the top of the screen.
	Spawn Skel-Monsta X times.	Summons a purple comet that initiates the "HURRY UP!" sequence.
	Die by Skel-Monsta X times.	Instantly spawns Skel-Monsta.
	Pop X Water Bubbles.	Summons the Cannon from Space Invaders as an assist character.
	Pop X Water Bubbles.	Summons Ptolemy as an assist character.
	Pop X Water Bubbles.	Summons Bob as an assist character.
	Pop X Water Bubbles.	Summons Hippopo as an assist character.
	Pop X Water Bubbles.	Summons Tiki as an assist character.
	Pop X Water Bubbles.	Summons Chack'n as an assist character (yup, no Pop for you).
	Collect X Big Red Items.	Summons Silver Hawk as an assist character.
	Pop X Water Bubbles.	Summons a large purple bubble dragon as an assist character.
	Collect X Big Onusa.	Summons Sayo-chan as an assist character.
	Collect X Big Magic Staves.	Summons Mr. Mikata (1P) or Peppl (2P) as an assist character.
	Enter "GIRL" on the high score screen.	Summons a Bunny Girl as an assist character.
	Pop X Wind Bubbles.	Greatly slows down the stage's air currents for 20 seconds.
	Defeat X enemies with Water Bubbles.	Gives the player 16 uses of fire breath for the current stage.
	Start X stages.	Gives the player an extra life!
	Collect X big point items.	Reveals the location of hidden Notes in the next 2 stages.

• Most items had their requirements changed. For more information on how item drops work, please consult the notes page of the main Bubble Symphony article.

Item	Value	D1	D2	D3	D4	D1	D2	D3	D4	Condition
	2,000	15				10				Trigger "HURRY UP!" X times.
	500	3				4				Collect X red "E" Extend Bubbles.
	500	3				4				Collect X "X" Extend Bubbles.
	500	3				4				Collect X "T" Extend Bubbles.
	500	3				4				Collect X blue "E" Extend Bubbles.
	500	3				4				Collect X "N" Extend Bubbles.
	500	3				4				Collect X "D" Extend Bubbles.
	3,000	8	10	12	14	16	18	20	22	Defeat X enemies with Thunder Bubbles.
	3,000	8	10	12	14	16	18	20	22	Defeat X enemies with Rainbow Bubbles.
	3,000	8	10	12	14	16	18	20	22	Defeat X enemies with Fire Bubbles.
	1,000	8	10	12	14	16	18	20	22	Defeat X enemies with Wind Bubbles.
	1,000	35				60				Collect X end-of-stage drops.
	3,000	8	10	12	14	10	12	14	16	Collect X special items.
	3,000	8	10	12	14	10	12	14	16	Collect X point items.
	1,000	35				80				Collect X treasure items.
	1,000	3				6				Collect X Pink Candies.
	1,000	3				6				Collect X Green Candies.
	1,000	3				6				Collect X Blue Candies.
	3,000	30	30	35	35	40	40	50	60	Collect X monster drops.
	300	24				29				Fall into X pits.
	300	23				28				Fall into X pits.
	300	22				27				Fall into X pits.
	300	21				26				Fall into X pits.
	300	20				25				Fall into X pits.
	200	8	11	18	23	70	80	90	100	Pop X Fire Bubbles.
	200	13				100				Pop X Thunder Bubbles.
	1,000	13				100				Pop X Rainbow Bubbles.
	1,200	8				20				Collect X bubble potions.
	1,200	7				18				Collect X bubble potions.
	1,200	6				16				Collect X bubble potions.
	1,200	5				14				Collect X bubble potions.
	1,200	4				12				Collect X bubble potions.
	1,200	3				10				Collect X bubble potions.
	100	12,288				N/A				Walk for X frames.
	100	9,216				N/A				Walk for X frames.
	100	6,144				N/A				Walk for X frames.

• There are 8 special items that aren't in the item table. Put the following code in bublbob2p.xml to force one of them to appear:

  <cheat desc="Change Special Item">
    <parameter>
      <item value="0x00BE">Blue Chest</item>
      <item value="0x00BF">Purple Chest</item>
      <item value="0x00C0">Yellow Chest</item>
      <item value="0x00C1">Red Chest</item>
      <item value="0x00C2">Pink Chest</item>
      <item value="0x00EF">Silver and Yellow Candy</item>
      <item value="0x00F0">Silver and Purple Candy</item>
      <item value="0x00F1">Silver and Blue Candy</item>
    </parameter>
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.pw@408D60=param</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

All five chests use the Gray Magic Cane sprite as a placeholder. They act like the chests in the final game, but the big sprites for the Big Diamonds aren't properly set up yet. They're supposed to use animations 09 to 0D but instead use sprites 0009 to 000D, which are from an unused animation for Bubblun/Bobblun and their first jumping frame.

The three silver candies use effect ID 30, which is a null subroutine in the prototype. These items didn't make it into the final game.

• A few items were changed to improve their effectiveness:

:*The lightning bolts that the Thunder Cross spawns fall every 181 frames in the prototype. This was decreased to every 61 frames in the final game.

:*When a Star Tiara is collected, stars spawn every 31 frames in the prototype and every 6 frames in the final game. Stars don't affect bubbled enemies in the prototype but they do in the final version.

Prototype	Final

• The Holy Water bonus game uses the unused flowers, coins, rainbow, and music notes from the final game instead of cards.
• The bonus game is limited to 71 items in the prototype and 48 items in the final game.
• In the final game, the game will never spawn items on the lowest row.

• The Pineapple is incorrectly tagged as a point item instead of a monster drop, so it spawns 4 pixels below the ground.

Used	Full

• The Dynamite item's explosion is assigned the incorrect palette in the prototype, appearing completely white; the actual palette can be seen in either of the sprite viewers. This was fixed in the final game.

Music Notes#

• The way that music notes work is very different in the prototype:

There's only one color of music note: Pink. To get a key, players have to collect all 9 music notes in a world.

When all notes are collected, the small items in the treasure chest are replaced by music notes worth 7,000 points, and the large diamond is replaced by a key. Only the Red, Blue, and Yellow Keys are available in the prototype.

In the final game, there are four different kinds of music notes. The music note color depends on what world the player is on.

A key spawns as soon as the player collects three notes of the same color.

The game displays which notes have been collected both below the stage name and below the high score.

• Keys don't do anything in the prototype but increment a counter at 408D93 in the RAM. This counter isn't used by anything else in the game.

Enemies#

• Only the following twelve enemies are code-complete in the prototype:

Zen-chan	Mighta	Monsta	Pulpul	Banebou	Hidgeons	Invader
Knightron	Uni Bo	Dorabo	Dranko	Magician

• There's one other enemy, the Drunk, that is partially coded. It can move and jump around, but when it tries to attack, it freezes in its throwing animation.

Put the following code in MAME's bublbob2p.xml cheat file and enable it to replace the Zen-chans in the first stage with Drunks:

  <cheat desc="Get Drunk">
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.mb@02F85C=0x8C</action>
      <action>maincpu.mb@02F860=0x8C</action>
      <action>maincpu.mb@02F864=0x8C</action>
    </script>
    <script state="off">
      <action>maincpu.mb@02F85C=0x80</action>
      <action>maincpu.mb@02F860=0x80</action>
      <action>maincpu.mb@02F864=0x80</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

• Five more enemies only exist as sprites:

Name	Flhoop	RoboJ	RoboL	Ouji-Sama	Hattonton
Frame IDs	06DF-06F1	N/A		06F2-06FE	06FF-070F

All of these enemies are lacking attack animations and projectile graphics.

• Enemies take about twice as long to land after dying.
• The Super Heart item transforms enemies into point items based on their species when players run into them. In the prototype, any enemy that wasn't part of the original Bubble Bobble turns into a Peach worth 2000 points.

In the final game, Knightrons turn into pink diamonds worth 6,000 points, Uni Bos turn into Bananas worth 500 points, and Drankos turn into Blue Diamonds worth 7,000 points. Dorabos and Magicians still turn into Peaches.

Boss Stages#

General#

• Boss stages use the same music as every other stage in the prototype.
• There are no boss intro animations yet.
• With the exception of Super Drunk and Mechabubblun escaping from their bubbles, bosses are completely silent.
• All bosses have 12 HP in the prototype. In the final game, the HP for normal bosses depends on what round it is.
• There are no cameo bosses in the prototype.
• All boss stages in the prototype only use the Thunder Bubble Potion, but the Fire, Water, and Rainbow Bubble Potions have already been coded and work as expected. Place the following cheat in MAME's bublbob2p.xml cheat file to swat out the Thunder Bubble Potion with one of the unused ones:

  <cheat desc="Change Bubble Potion">
    <parameter>
      <item value="0x00D0">Fire</item>
      <item value="0x00D1">Water</item>
      <item value="0x00D3">Rainbow</item>
    </parameter>
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.mw@0505EE=param</action>
      <action>maincpu.mw@0505F0=param</action>
      <action>maincpu.mw@0505F2=param</action>
      <action>maincpu.mw@0505F4=param</action>
      <action>maincpu.mw@0505F6=param</action>
      <action>maincpu.mw@0505F8=param</action>
    </script>
    <script state="off">
      <action>maincpu.mw@0505EE=0x00D2</action>
      <action>maincpu.mw@0505F0=0x00D2</action>
      <action>maincpu.mw@0505F2=0x00D2</action>
      <action>maincpu.mw@0505F4=0x00D2</action>
      <action>maincpu.mw@0505F6=0x00D2</action>
      <action>maincpu.mw@0505F8=0x00D2</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

• Bubble Potions don't provide players with temporary rapid-fire capabilities yet.

Prototype	Final

• The large treasure chest has no sound effects in the prototype.
• The signs underneath the doors in the prototype are rather unhelpful, only including the text "over there" (あっち) and "over here" (こっち). The final game uses different sign graphics that includes an icon and the name of the world the door leads to.
• In the prototype, the large treasure chest stays around while the player chooses a door. In the final game, it disappears as soon as the doors spawn.
• The prototype is missing the animation of the player(s) entering the door.

• The prototype has a unique "World Clear" screen that appears after entering one of the doors. The final game deletes this and instead places a World Clear graphic in the stage itself.

Super Drunk#

• In the prototype, Super Drunk only starts shooting bottles in his third phase, while in the final game, he starts from the second phase.
• Super Drunk has an animation right before his third phase where he turns angry and starts billowing smoke. He's easy pickings in the prototype, but the final game makes him invincible in this animation.
• Super Drunk has four movement speeds in his final phase that are based on both Rank and how low his HP is; these were all sped up in the final game. The values listed in the table below are in pixels per frames and apply to both vertical and horizontal movement:

• The delay between firing bottles is always 320 frames in the prototype. In the final game this is based on Rank:

• Super Drunk doesn't have to stop to fire bottles, which is more in line with how he acted in Bubble Bobble. He sits still for 30 frames in the final version.
• In the prototype, Super Drunk always fires 6 bottles. In the final game, he'll fire between 3 to 8 bottles depending on how fast players gets to his second phase.

Super Monsta#

• The way that Super Monsta spawns Monstas was modified:

:*In the prototype, Super Monsta will try to spawn Monstas every 384 frames. In his first phase he'll never spawn any, in his second phase he'll spawn two, and in his final phase he'll spawn three. Only one batch of monsters can appear at once.

:*In the final game, Super Monsta will always try to spawn two at a time, provided there's space available. However, both of the boss stages he's in are fairly cramped, so he doesn't get the chance to spawn enemies often. The spawn delay is based on Rank:

There can be multiple batches at a time, but there's a cap on the number that can be on-screen that's also based on Rank:

Note that since Super Monsta always spawns two at a time, he can go 1 Monsta over the limit if the number of Monstas on screen is Limit-1.

Super Mighta#

• In the prototype, Super Mighta can summon boulders every 240 frames. In the final game this delay depends on, as should be obvious by now, Rank:

• In the final version only, if Rank is at least 24, Super Mighta will spawn a Mighta after every 4 attacks.

Mechabubblun#

• Mechabubblun flies around twice as fast in the final game.

• Mechabubblun only has a single attack, one that doesn't appear at all in the final version. Its head floats a little bit off of its body, revealing its core, which then fires two sets of five energy balls. They go upwards off the top of the screen and then fall back down after a bit.

Prototype	Final

• In the prototype, after being defeated, Mechabubblun's body slowly falls apart: First its right arm, then the right foot, then its head, its body, left arm, left leg, and finally its tail. In the final game, all of these parts fly off simultaneously.