Bubble Shooter Games: Classic, Themed and Pop It

The rule takes one line to learn. A wall of coloured bubbles hangs at the top of the screen and a launcher waits underneath. Bring three of a colour together and the group bursts, and anything left dangling without a link falls with it. You win by emptying the board before the wall crosses the line at the bottom. What makes it worth playing is the aiming: when the straight route is blocked, you bank the shot off a side wall. Most versions run no clock, so an angle can be studied as long as you like.

For the version nobody ever needed to change, start here. Bubble Shooter is the plainest form of the genre, a coloured wall and a steady aim. Bubble Shooter Classic Online keeps the look light enough to open quickly on a slow connection. Bubble Crash has one aim only, a high score before the stack crushes you. Bubble Shooter Infinite drops levels altogether and measures how long you hold the danger line. Bubble Shooter - puzzle wraps the board in stage goals and a three-star rating instead.

The themed versions serve the same board in different clothes. Bubble Shooter Pet Match 3 replaces the bubbles with animal faces and shows the colour of your next shot beside the launcher. Fruits Pop drops the three-in-a-row rule entirely, since two matching fruits pop on contact, and small animals hang underneath waiting to be freed. Bubble Shooter Fruits Wheel puts the target on a turning wheel, so you aim where it will be rather than where it is. Bubble Shooter Easter runs the classic rules with coloured eggs, and Bubble Shooter Candies gives you 36 boards and a clock on each.

Some players would rather touch the bubbles than aim at them, and the pop it games exist for exactly that. Pop It Now has no clock and no failure screen; you press every bubble on a tray and a new toy unlocks. Pop It Bubble Game builds three-dimensional boards and lets you hold and drag through a whole row. Pop It Duel turns the same motion into a race of three rounds. PoP Express lets a physics engine drift the bubbles around and offers five modes, two of them completely unhurried.

None of these games asks for an installation or an account, and they all run on a touch screen as happily as with a mouse. Open a page, press Play and take your first shot. Nearby shelves worth a look are Match and Block, Kids and Arcade.

How do these games play?

You set the angle first. Slide the mouse or your finger to swing the launcher, then release to fire. If the bubble lands against two more of its own colour, the group bursts, and every bubble hanging below that loses its grip on the ceiling falls as well. Those drop chains are where the points really come from, so cutting the link above a cluster beats popping one group at a time.

Then comes the aiming proper. A blocked straight line means banking off a side wall, and the rebound angle is the genuine solution to most crowded boards. The colour queued next shows beside the launcher, which lets you plan two shots together. A wasted shot pushes the stack lower in Bubble Crash and Bubble Shooter Classic Online, so the golden rule is not to fire without a target. Keep your eye on the bottom row, because that is the row that ends a run.

After that everything depends on the version. Classic boards want the screen emptied. Bubble Shooter - puzzle prints a goal on screen that you read before the first shot, since some stages only want one colour collected. Bubble Shooter Candies runs a timer and adds the seconds you save to your score. Fruits Pop needs only two fruits of a kind to touch. In the pop it games there is no launcher at all: you press the bubbles on a tray, and holding the button while you sweep across a row clears it far faster than tapping each one.

Which one should I pick?

Left column is the game, the two right columns say whether it runs on a phone and how many people can play.

• Bubble Shooter - Free Classic Puzzle Game: The plainest form: join three of a colour and eat the wall from below.
• Bubble Shooter Classic Online - Free Bubble Game: A light build that opens in seconds; the rules are the ones you know.
• Bubble Crash - Free Bubble Popping Game Online: The stack creeps down; one shot that drops a cluster multiplies the points.
• Bubble Shooter Infinite - Free Endless Bubble Game: Endless flow; power-ups belong to the moment two rows are left.
• Bubble Shooter - puzzle - Free Star Levels: Each stage sets its own goal, and three stars means almost no misses.
• Bubble Shooter Pet Match 3 - Free Animal Game: Animal faces instead of bubbles; the next colour shows by the launcher.
• Fruits Pop - Free Fruit Bubble Rescue Game: Two fruits of a kind are enough, and you free the animals hanging below.
• Bubble Shooter Fruits Wheel - Free Spin Game: The target turns, so you lead it and aim where the fruit will arrive.
• Bubble Shooter Candies - Free 36 Level Game: 36 levels; seconds left when you finish are added to your score.
• Pop It Now - Free Bubble Popping Game Online: No clock and no losing: press every bubble on the tray to finish.

Frequently asked questions

Further reading

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