Why seeds?

Most bubble shooters ask one thing of you: clear the board. That’s a good game, but we wanted a reason to care about how you clear it. So some bubbles in Bubble Garden carry a seed. Pop a seed bubble and the seed blows away. Knock out the bubbles holding it up instead, and it falls into the flower bed at the bottom and grows into a flower.

That small rule changes how you aim. A big pop feels great, but the better shot is often the one that cuts a seed loose. Your stars come from the flowers you plant, so you can clear a level quickly for one star, then come back and plan it out for three. Younger players get a flower for every lucky drop. Older ones get a puzzle about which bubble to take out first.

A bit of real bubble shooter history

The bubble shooter started in Japanese arcades. In June 1994, Taito released Puzzle Bobble, a spin-off of its 1986 arcade game Bubble Bobble. The two bubble-blowing dragons from that game, Bub and Bob, work the launcher at the bottom of the screen. In North America the game was called Bust-A-Move. Its designers were Seiichi Nakakuki and Kazuhiro Kinoshita.

You fire colored bubbles up at a cluster hanging from the ceiling. Three or more of one color pop, and any bubbles hanging from them fall too. Every so often the ceiling drops a row and pushes everything closer to the bottom. In December 1994 it came out on SNK’s Neo Geo arcade system as well, and in February 1995 the Japanese magazine Game Machine listed that version as the second most popular arcade game of the month.

Plenty of other games borrowed the idea. One of the best known is Bubble Shooter, a free clone released in 2002 by a company called Absolutist. It came to iOS in 2010 and Android in 2012, and a browser version is still around today.

The four seasons

There are 40 levels, 10 per season. Each season adds a color, more seeds and a quicker ceiling:

• Spring: 3 colors, 2 or 3 seeds, a drop every 10 to 8 shots.
• Summer: 4 colors, 3 or 4 seeds, a drop every 9 to 7 shots.
• Autumn: 5 colors, 4 or 5 seeds, a drop every 8 to 6 shots.
• Winter: 6 colors, 5 or 6 seeds, a drop every 7 to 6 shots.

Every color has its own shape: red hearts, blue drops, yellow stars, green triangles, purple moons and orange diamonds. If two colors look alike to you, match the shapes.

How to play

• Drag on the garden to aim, then let go to shoot. With a mouse, point and click. On a keyboard, use the left and right arrows and Space.
• Join 3 or more bubbles of the same color to pop them.
• Bubbles that are no longer joined to the top fall. A falling seed plants a flower. A popped seed blows away.
• The ceiling creeps down one row every few shots. Clear every bubble before they reach the dashed line.
• Tap the small bubble, press X or use the Swap button to trade your bubble for the next one.
• Stars: one for clearing the garden, two for planting at least half the seeds, three for planting them all.
• Sound is on to start. Tap 🔊 to mute, or 🎵 for music.
• Earn 3 stickers in this game for your QuickBOP sticker book.

Tips from the flower bed

Aim above the seed, not at it. A seed falls once nothing above it is holding on. Pop the group it hangs from.

Use the walls. The aim line shows one bounce off the side. A bank shot can reach a bubble tucked behind others.

Count the dots. The dots beside the launcher show how many shots are left before the ceiling drops. With one left, the bubbles wobble.

Swap when you’re stuck. If your bubble has no good home, swap it for the next one.

Your turn

The first garden is three rows and three colors. Pop the bubbles above a seed, watch it fall, and start your flower bed.