At first glance, Frog-A-Bubs appears to be a typical bubble or ball shooter where the player must aim and fire colored balls from the bottom of the screen into like colored balls at the top of the screen. However, while Frog-A-Bubs is all of that, it also brings a new element to play in this tired genre of games.
For anyone unfamiliar with this type of game, the challenge of Frog-A-Bubs is to fire colored balls from the bottom of the screen to the top and to aim them so they connect with like-colored balls. When three or more of the same color connect, the balls disappear, your score increases and any balls that were attached below now fall freely off the board, usually resulting in an even higher score. These games, sometimes known as bubble shooters, have become fairly common the past few years, mostly due to their easy to learn addictive gameplay. While it is not uncommon to see a slightly new gameplay feature pop up in the form of a power up or the level design, most of these titles are very similar and it would not be far from the truth to say that if you’ve played one, then you’ve played them all.
The interesting new feature that Frog-A-Bubs brings to the table is the hinging mechanic that happens when the colored balls connect. In most bubble shooter games, the balls can be fired to bounce off of wall, but as soon as they hit another ball they’re stuck to it. While that is mostly true in Frog-A-Bubs, the balls are only stuck to the rim of the ball, but can continue to shift around the rim based on its momentum. If that’s difficult to understand, imagine two tennis balls on a table that have to stay touching, but they can still rotate around each other. That’s how the mechanics work for these colored balls. It may not sound like much of a change from the original concept, but this new mechanic could have you firing at a whole mass of balls that are quickly shifting back and forth or moving at a slow pendulum pace depending on the placing and momentum. There are quite a few tricks that you’ll be able to pull off in Frog-A-Bubs that would not be capable in another bubble shooter.
Frog-A-Bubs has two modes of play, Arcade and Puzzle. There are 60 levels to play in the arcade mode with three stars to unlock on each level. Puzzle mode adds to the difficulty by dropping level after level of new colored balls even as you struggle to clear those already looming above. The shifting nature of the balls can make for interesting and unpredictable gameplay, which also reads as really frustrating or cool results.
The bubble shooter game is a tried and tested model that never needed any new features to be entertaining. However, the creators of Frog-A-Bubs added a new game mechanic anyway, and I can only think of it as an improvement. Frog-A-Bobs will have you cursing the gods of colorful glass balls and then coming back for just one more round.
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