Overview: The object of each level is to help Blinky squish all the enemies. You use the direction keys to move Blinky (the yellow guy in the picture) around between the bubbles. Manoeuvre Blinky so he's on the other side of a bubble from a nasty enemy, then face the bubble and press the 'push' key to push the bubble over and make fish food out of the enemy! In the example on the right, Blinky is in a perfect position to press 'push' and squish the enemy with the bubble he's facing.

If the bubble you push can't move, such as when it's blocked by another bubble or is next to the wall, it pops instead. Popping bubbles is just as important as pushing bubbles, because you make a quick escape from a nasty situation by popping bubbles and creating a way out of a dead end.

Scoring: You score 200 points for every fish you squish. If a bubble squishes more than one fish in a single push, the points double up for every extra fish you get. So, if you squish three fish with one push, you get 200 for the first, 400 for the second, and 800 for the third.

In the example on the left, you can see the results of the second and third enemy fish being squished and giving points from a single bubble push. In this example, we get a total of 200 + 400 + 800 = 1400 points for that single push. If you line up those enemy fish you can get big scores, but be warned, it's not easy! When you're learning you probably want to concentrate on just getting rid of the critters one at a time.

Bouncing bubbles: On some levels you can get bubbles that bounce. That is, when pushed, they don't stop when they hit an obstacle, they bounce right back. Blue bubbles bounce once, and purple bubbles bounce twice. Be careful to move out the way once you've pushed them, otherwise they'll bounce back and squish you! One helpful tip is that bouncing bubbles make it easier to squish more than one fish at once, as they obviously keep moving for longer.

The example on the right shows both blue and purple bouncing bubbles. Blinky has just pushed the purple bubble, and it's on its way up. He'd better move in a second or he'll be squished by it on its way back. Also be careful when you push a bubble into another that's already moving, as it'll bounce back your way!

Dynamite: On later levels Blinky has the chance to use dynamite to help squish his enemies. The dynamite explodes in one of two ways. First, if the dynamite is pushed, it floats along like a normal bubble, but when it hits an obstacle it explodes instantly. For the second way, if the dynamite cannot move, it does not 'pop' like a normal bubble when pushed; instead, the fuse lights, and you only have a couple of seconds to move to a safe distance before it explodes!

There are two sizes of dynamite. The first explodes and squishes everything one 'bubble width' away, while the larger size (from level 12 onwards) squishes everything two bubble widths away. The example on the left shows a large dynamite with the fuse lit. Time for Blinky to get well away!

Bonuses: Every so often you may be lucky enough to see a bonus air bubble floating up the screen. These are different from the normal air bubbles in that they have a small picture inside them. If you pop this bonus bubble, either by swimming into it or squishing it with a bubble, you get the bonus shown by the picture.

The example on the right shows Blinky about to pop a bonus air bubble which gives Blinky the "E" for the "EXTRA" bonus (see below for more information on the EXTRA bonus).

Here are the different types of air bubble bonus you can get in Bubble Trouble:

EXTRA Bonus: As we've just seen, some of the air bubble bonuses include the letters to spell EXTRA. You'll notice when you start a game that the letters EXTRA are in white at the bottom of the screen. Every time you pop a letter from EXTRA, that letter gets coloured in. If you colour in all five letters, you get an extra life, a 10,000 point bonus, and all the enemies are also temporarily captured in bubbles, ready for you to pop! The example on the left shows how Blinky has popped two of the five EXTRA letters, E and R. Only 3 more to go!

Jewels: You'll notice that scattered around each level are a few special bubbles with jewels in them. These bubbles cannot be popped, but when they're pushed together they magically join. If you join all the jewel bubbles together on a level you get a large score bonus: 5000 points on level 1, 6000 on level 2, up to a maximum of 10000 from level 6 onwards. In addition, all the enemies are temporarily caught in bubbles, ready for you to pop them!

Once two jewels have been joined they can't be moved any more, so you have to always be pushing single, unjoined jewels. Don't think you can get rid of all but one of the enemies before concentrating on the jewels, as Sammy the Starfish hatches if you join jewels when you've got rid of too many of your enemies. Finally, one important point: try and join them up away from the walls; if you join them on the walls you only get 1000 points, as it's much easier to do. The example on the right shows the special stars that you get when two jewels have just been joined together.

Level bonus: In the bottom right corner of the Bubble Trouble playing area is your level bonus, which counts down as you play the level. When you finish the level, whatever bonus you have left is added to your score, so the faster you do the level the more points you get! The example on the left shows the level bonus.

When the bonus is running out, you'll hear a beeping sound to encourage you to speed up. If the bonus runs out completely and you're still playing, you'll get a "Hurry up!" message. No more enemies will appear on this level, but the ones that are left will turn nasty and really go for you! You must also join the jewels (if you want to) before the bonus runs out, because once the bonus is gone the jewel bubbles turn back into normal bubbles.

Score multipliers: We saw earlier how you get bigger points for squishing more than one fish with a bubble. If you squish three or more fish with one bubble, not only do you get big points, you get a points multiplier that you keep until you lose a life. The multiplier is shown in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, next to your level bonus. All points are multiplied, including jewel bonuses and level bonuses. Watch your score race up!

Note that the more fish you squish with one bubble, the higher your multiplier goes up from where it was. So, if you already have a multiplier that triples all your points (3x) and you squish three fish with one bubble, your multiplier will increase one level to 4x; if you got four fish it would increase two levels to 5x. Once it's on 5x, any more multi-squishes will give you big points, 2000 points up to level 8 and 4000 points from level 9 onwards.

Multipliers will help you make really big scores. Imagine if you have a 4x multiplier: even squishing a single fish is worth 800 points, finishing the level with 1500 left on the level bonus would give you 6000 points, and joining all the jewels could give you as much as 40000 points!

 
And finally...

With all this information you've got the basics of Bubble Trouble! Don't worry if it all seems a bit much for now, concentrate on pushing the bubbles and finishing the levels. As you get better at the game you'll start looking for ways to get score multipliers and other good bonuses.

When you're ready, move on to the advanced section to find out some expert Bubble Trouble tips! In the mean time, check out the enemies section to see what you're up against.