How to play Bubble Shooter

Bubble Shooter is an aim-and-pop game. A wall of coloured bubbles hangs at the top of the board and you fire more up into it from a cannon at the bottom.

The rules

Drag to swing the cannon and release to fire. A neon guide traces the shot, including its bounce off the side walls.

Land three or more bubbles of the same colour touching each other and the whole cluster bursts.

A new row of bubbles slides down every few shots. Clear the whole board to win. If any bubble crosses the dashed line near the bottom, the game is over.

Bank shots

Bubbles bounce off the left and right walls but not off the ceiling.

That single asymmetry is what makes the game interesting. A gap tucked under an overhang cannot be reached directly, but it can be reached by banking off a wall and coming in at an angle — and the guide shows you the bounce, so this is a matter of reading rather than guessing.

The drop shot, which is where the points are

Popping three bubbles scores three bubbles. Popping the bubbles that were holding a large section to the ceiling drops that entire section, and everything that falls scores as a bonus.

This is by far the most valuable move in the game, and it is why simply popping the easiest available match is usually the wrong play. A cluster hanging by two bubbles is worth targeting even if the shot is hard; a cluster in the middle of the wall is worth much less.

So the question to ask before each shot is not "where can I make a match" but "what is holding the wall up".

Managing the descent

The row that arrives every few shots is a clock. Every shot that does not pop something both wastes a turn and moves you closer to the line.

Two habits follow. First, clear downward-hanging spikes early — a single column dangling lower than the rest is what actually crosses the line, long before the main wall does. Second, avoid parking stray bubbles on the underside of the wall; a mis-aimed shot that sticks somewhere useless makes the wall taller and the board harder.

Using the next bubble

You can see the colour you are about to fire and the one after it. Plan both. If your current bubble has no good target, look for a place to put it that sets the next one up rather than firing it somewhere harmless.

Endgame

When the board thins out, colours become scarce. Clearing every bubble of a colour removes it from the cannon entirely, which makes the remaining shots much more predictable — so deliberately finishing off a colour is a strong move late on.

Adventure and Endless

Adventure gives you a fixed board and a fixed number of shots. Clear it and you move on; the fewer shots you use, the more stars you keep. Levels are generated from their number, so level 40 is the same board for everyone, and the Levels sheet lets you go back to any level you have reached and beat your own rating.

The ladder tightens in more ways than one. The colour count climbs, the boards get bigger, the budget over par gets thinner, and the aim guide stops drawing every bounce — by the last band it shows you the first wall and leaves the rest to you.

Endless is the older game: no budget, no end, just a wall that comes down until it crosses the line.

Earning a bomb or a rainbow

Neither can be bought and neither is handed out. A bomb arrives when a single shot pops six or more, which means you had to build the group first. A rainbow arrives when a shot drops five or more, which means you had to find what was holding them up.

You can only hold one at a time, so there is nothing to hoard, and they never change what a level is worth in stars — they save you shots, and the shots were the reward.

Armour and stone

Two kinds of obstacle appear as the ladder climbs, and they arrive one at a time so each gets a band of its own to be learned in.

An armoured bubble is a normal colour under a shell. It joins its colour's group exactly as any other bubble does, but a match only breaks the shell — and because that match removes every plain bubble of that colour touching it, the cracked bubble is usually left standing alone. Clearing it means building a fresh group around it. Armour is therefore not one extra shot; it is one extra shot plus the setup, which is why a board with six shells is much more than six shots harder.

A stone has no colour. It cannot be matched at any time by any shot, so it can only leave the board by falling, which means cutting the bubbles that hold it to the ceiling. Stones are never placed on the ceiling row itself, so there is always something above them to cut.

The two obstacles pull in opposite directions and that is the point. Armour rewards patience — keep working the same colour. Stone punishes it, because the longer you spend matching, the longer the stone sits there taking up the space you need. A board with both is asking you to decide which half of it you are actually playing.

A bomb ignores all of this and removes whatever it touches, armour and stone included. It is the one reliable answer to an obstacle in a place you cannot reach, and it is worth holding for exactly that.