MAME ROW #75 - Bubble Bobble

cosmo0

165 980 is the farthest I'm willing to go today :)

With the overlay from John Merit in my repository (shameless plug)

pjft

I had actually been playing it quite a bit in the last few weeks, and this is my current high score table.

My top score is 317.100 in 1 credit, single player. Apologies for the weird cropping of the photo, I can get a better one later. :) Also, @AndersHP , I took inspiration from your cabinet and put together a Bubble-Bobble themed one as well a few weeks back!

The scores #1 and #3 were a 2-player session with my sister, so I'm not counting those here.

If you're curious about this game, it is surprisingly deep and systematic. You can read some hints and tips here - I don't really go for the level guides (well, that also explains why I can only get to level 14-15 on a single credit) but the basic principles are there.

I hope these help you have even more fun with the game (and now put my high score to shame :) ).

AndersHP

Jesus, guys! I was so happy for my hiscore of 146.480 untill I logged on here. Well, will share the pic anyway (sorry for the glare, sunny day today).

Really cool to se so many Bubble Bobble themed cabs here! :)
Nice going @pjft and please let us see the entire cabinet!

alt text

cyperghost

@andershp @pjft @GtBFilms

There are several ways to get highscore. If you kill 7 "bubbeled" enemies in one streak you earn 64k Pts ;)

More to read here (not 100% same link pjft posted alreaday) and please don't cheat!
And here is a kind of walkthrough

UDb23

@pjft are you using any shader?
Interesting... in your screenshot colored text shows scanlines while white seems not.

AndersHP

@udb23 I think the white is just blown out on the photo, right? The scanlines look subtle though. I'd like to know which shader is used too.

Never got around to using any, because I thought they looked way too much and darkened the image.

pjft

@UDb23 I hadn't noticed that, but you're right. It's likely a screen brightness thing together with the screen being very reflective (that's why I cropped it in the first place :) ). I use crt-pi, but the scanlines go all the way from one end to the other.

Here are two screens of it, the more zoomed one does show the scanlines in the whites on the area to the right.

@AndersHP I'll certainly share pictures of the cabinet. I bought the cabinet from the folks at XCade, and for the artwork I had asked @TMNTturtlguy for his help at the time, and he is really the reason why it looks so good (at least in my opinion). I couldn't have asked for anything better, really!

@AndersHP by the way, just saw your picture of your own cabinet in the reflection (that was why I cropped mine as well :) ) and it looks as great as I remembered it from the other. Really, thank you very much for the inspiration - had I not seen yours in the first place, I wouldn't have thought of doing something similar. This was one of my favorite games back in the day, and it ends up being a fairly family/child-friendly design to keep at home. I also customized the marquee so it reads "Tavares Arcade", with Tavares being our family's surname.

The boy there is my youngest son, who turned 2 yesterday!

cyperghost

@pjft Your boy is a real highscore ;)

pjft

@cyperghost He is indeed :D

AndersHP

@pjft Wow, that's a big project well done, right there! Thanks for the kind words, I must say your cabinet looks great!

And congratulations to your boy!

obsidianspider

520K?! Oh man, I've got my work cut out for me.

pjft

@obsidianspider No, no. 310k.

obsidianspider

@pjft Either way, wow. Impressive.

Brigane

Here is my first five attempts on my half finished bartop arcade. It's my first time playing the arcade version this evening so I guess I can be proud of the result so far.
I'm more used to the Amiga version and this gameplay seems a bit different somehow. I can't really point out what it is though.
Score: 311130

@pjft Waaauw, what a nice arcade cabinet, I'm totally stunned. I have to settle with my little bartop arcade for now.
Dimensions W: 230mm H: 315mm D: 230mm
I'm thinking of buying a larger bartop arcade flat pack cause this seems a bit to small.

pjft

@brigane wow, great score! I see that level 15 is also your nemesis:)

That 1942 cabinet is quite nice - and a great classic theme, one of the first games I had on my ZX Spectrum.

Thanks for the comments, in my case I had to go for a 2-player cabinet as one of the main hopes is that in the future it'll be a great way to introduce my kids to proper multiplayer games. And also to play some games with my wife.

Domogram Rovers

I got 600k+ last night. Disclosure: they had Bubble Bobble in my local arcade way back and I played it a lot. There is a secret room thing with big points but I can't remember how to get it. You need to get to a certain level without losing a life I think for it to appear. Maybe level 24 or 30 rings a bell?

Fruitybit

Some aspirational scores coming up- I’m nowhere near! I’m using mame2003, did have a couple of scoreboards but they seem to have gone:( my other games still retain their scores-although I haven’t tried putting a new score in- is this a game that doesn’t save, or do I need to do more research?

pjft

@domogram-rovers I believe it's level 20 without losing a life. That's a great score, what level did you get to?

meleu

hey guys, I tried this game a bit and got 114620

And then I spent my free time creating some achievements for Seaquest (Atari 2600). If you want to take a look:
http://retroachievements.org/Game/11439

AndersHP

I just want you all to know, that nomatter how this MAME ROW turns out, I'm keeping my avatar...! ;-)