High Score Challenge - S21 - R2 - Bubble Bobble

[FourthStone]

Another small increase... 332650

[klintworth]

Small bump!

[klintworth]

In the 200K club …. Just!

[klintworth]

[MatthewThompson]

A quick question, does anyone know how to get into heart on level 13

Don't fight it, just go with the flow!

Careful though, you can end up inside with all the goodies on the outside!

Many thanks - I thought it might be to do with the water - always seem to get caught up in it when don't want it and when needed I can't get into it.

[fwibbler]

Had a nearly perfect run this morning up to level 15. Lost a couple of ives there and then lost the rest of them on level 16. That one's tough!

[Rod C]

A quick question, does anyone know how to get into heart on level 13

Don't fight it, just go with the flow!

Careful though, you can end up inside with all the goodies on the outside!

Many thanks - I thought it might be to do with the water - always seem to get caught up in it when don't want it and when needed I can't get into it.

Cheers! I'm not sure of the best way to do level 13. I avoid going into the heart and clear the level as quickly as possible but then there isn't enough time to get all the points.

Just made some more progress.

[Rod C]

Trying a new approach and cracked 500K.

[KarateEd]

A bit better......not as good as you Rod but the furthest I've gotten so far....

[Rod C]

A bit better......not as good as you Rod but the furthest I've gotten so far...

You're smokin' there Ed but don't look at me, look at Fwibbler. He's on fire!

Had a nearly perfect run this morning up to level 15. Lost a couple of ives there and then lost the rest of them on level 16. That one's tough!

Not to mention Venger who was white hot so early but ... has he cooled off?

Not quite as much as I had the last time we played, but not far off.

[KarateEd]

Not to mention Venger who was white hot so early but ... has he cooled off?

It's not that he's cooled off, he doesn't have to play as long as no one is close to him score wise........that's his modus operandi.

[Venger]

Not to mention Venger who was white hot so early but ... has he cooled off?

It's not that he's cooled off, he doesn't have to play as long as no one is close to him score wise........that's his modus operandi.

That's me to a tee, Ed. I have played once or twice to try and get the treasure room on video. I did that, and get another 1 million+ score, but I'll post it after the round's over. I did find out that you don't have to get to level 20 on your first life to spawn the treasure room though (it may be that you have to get to level 19 on your first life though).

Another thing that's off-putting is level 22, it hasn't really been implemented properly. The idea is to break the lightning bubbles to kill the baddies but they drift from where they should be, making it much more awkward. This doesn't happen in either the arcade version, or the C64 version (which I've completed, albeit with continues (which we don't get in the BBC version )).

[Rod C]

That's me to a tee, Ed. I have played once or twice to try and get the treasure room on video.

There's a treasure room?!!!

I'll have to try harder.

[KarateEd]

Just a smidge better....

[Rod C]

Well, I tried harder and got to level 16 with a swag full of lives but it got the better of me.

[KarateEd]

Well, I tried harder and got to level 16 with a swag full of lives but it got the better of me.

Yeh, that's a pretty tough level. I think there's a pattern there but still can't quite see what it is.....nice score Rod.....

[chrisn]

A bit late to the party ... I got to level 16, having skipped a few by collecting the umbrella on an earlier level. My best so far: 435560

[klintworth]

[Rod C]

I think I got a few more diamonds in this run which is all very nice but it's not getting me any closer to that fabled treasure room!

[KarateEd]

High Score Tables Updated

[Rod C]

That treasure room is elusive but I got to level 17 with two lives and a smallish increase.

[MatthewThompson]

Finally managed a new high score - think this is as far as I will get , I do wonder had this been a proper release it might have played a bit better, and had better controls.

[klintworth]

[klintworth]

[KarateEd]

High Score Tables Updated for Season 21, Round 2......

Another excellent game.

Well, we have a winner and that is, with a crazy score of over 130M Venger . Congratulations on a crazy excellent score and win Venger.

On a side note I'd like to thank all those who played this round. We had 10 playing this game this round so.....Thank you!!! It seems we are mostly averaging out at 11 so this participation is a bit below average.

As usual please check to ensure I've not missed anyone's scores because it's easy to miss things on this and I really don't want to do that for anyone's hard earned score.

[Venger]

High Score Tables Updated for Season 21, Round 2......

Another excellent game.

Well, we have a winner and that is, with a crazy score of over 130M Venger . Congratulations on a crazy excellent score and win Venger.

On a side note I'd like to thank all those who played this round. We had 10 playing this game this round so.....Thank you!!! It seems we are mostly averaging out at 11 so this participation is a bit below average.

As usual please check to ensure I've not missed anyone's scores because it's easy to miss things on this and I really don't want to do that for anyone's hard earned score.

Even I'm not crazy (or good!) enough to get over 130M. Just over 1.5M will do me Just about to post a run which features the treasure room on YouTube in the next hour or so.

[KarateEd]

High Score Tables Updated for Season 21, Round 2......

Another excellent game.

Well, we have a winner and that is, with a crazy score of over 130M Venger . Congratulations on a crazy excellent score and win Venger.

On a side note I'd like to thank all those who played this round. We had 10 playing this game this round so.....Thank you!!! It seems we are mostly averaging out at 11 so this participation is a bit below average.

As usual please check to ensure I've not missed anyone's scores because it's easy to miss things on this and I really don't want to do that for anyone's hard earned score.

Even I'm not crazy (or good!) enough to get over 130M. Just over 1.5M will do me Just about to post a run which features the treasure room on YouTube in the next hour or so.

For us mere mortals it might as well be 130M.......

[bob147]

Possibly the wrong forum for this but it's the first Bubble Bobble thread I found so here we are . It seems mad to me that even the high scoring elite players in this thread can only get to about level 30 (or perhaps are choosing to, because it's easier to farm points on the earlier levels). Was it a crafty way of avoiding having to fit 100 levels on the disc? Has anyone checked they're all there?

The arcade game was very fair in that if you were skillful enough and understood how the bonuses work, you could finish the game on a single credit, whereas that doesn't seem to be the case on the beeb, which is a shame!

[Cybershark]

It seems mad to me that even the high scoring elite players in this thread can only get to about level 30 (or perhaps are choosing to, because it's easier to farm points on the earlier levels). Was it a crafty way of avoiding having to fit 100 levels on the disc? Has anyone checked they're all there?

The arcade game was very fair in that if you were skillful enough and understood how the bonuses work, you could finish the game on a single credit, whereas that doesn't seem to be the case on the beeb, which is a shame!

I did check, once upon a time, I think. They are definitely all there - including the special level 100.
The reason for the difference in difficulty and the handling of bonuses is down to the fact that - quite often - coders were not given much support for their conversions. They sometimes had to just play through versions on other machines and emulate the gameplay that they observed.

In fact, going on the info on The Stairway to Hell's Lost & Found section, that was exactly the case for this one:

An unpublished BBC micro conversion that claimed to be from Firebird surfaced on the web a few years ago. Coded by Peter Gillet with graphics by Martin Kelsey, this version was written entirely off the developer's own backs. Only once the game was nearly completed (based upon hours of playing the C64 conversion!) did they approach Firebird.

[bob147]

Thanks @Cybershark, definitely one I'd love to see given the 'remaster' treatment one of these days. I'd happily grind away at tweaking the level parameters to get them closer to the arcade, that info is readily available these days thanks to fan editors/reverse engineering. Just the small matter of the lack of disassembly to find out where those parameters are hiding... that would be more of a challenge