Bubbles

The game was developed by John Kotlarik and Python Anghelo. Kotlarik wanted to create a non-violent game inspired by Pac-Man. Anghelo designed the artwork and scenario as well as a special plastic cabinet that saw limited use. Later released on home consoles as part of arcade compilations and online as a web-based version. Reception was mixed and focused on the odd premise. Critics nonetheless praised the gameplay as enjoyable, with some noting the title's obscurity. While reviewers were divided on the audiovisuals, a common point of criticism was the graphics having an excess of blue.

• Title — Bubbles • Developer — Williams Electronics • Publisher — Williams Electronics • Designer — John Kotlarik Tim Murphy Python Anghelo • Platforms — Arcade • Release — March 1983 • Genre — Action • Modes — Single-player, multiplayer

• Illustration — The light blue bubble (center right) avoids brushes and razors to clean up ants, crumbs, and grease within the sink. Game statistics, such as the score and level number, are tracked in the top left corner of the screen. Bubbles is an action game where the player controls a soap bubble from a top-down perspective. The objective is to clean a kitchen sink by maneuvering over ants, crumbs, and grease spots to absorb them before they slide into the drain. As the bubble absorbs more objects, it grows in size, soon acquiring eyes and then a smiling mouth. At the same time, sponges and scrub brushes slowly move around the sink, cleaning it on their own in competition with the player. Touching these enemies costs the player one life unless the bubble is at its largest size. If the bubble is large enough, the enemy will be knocked away and the bubble will shrink. Sponges and brushes can be knocked into the drain for bonus points, eliminating them from play. Two other enemies in the sink are stationary razor blades and roaches that crawl out of the drain. Contact with a blade is always fatal, while the bubble can safely touch the roach only when carrying a broom, which will kill the roach on contact. The broom can be acquired by moving over a cleaning lady who sometimes appears in the sink. The level ends when all of the point-scoring objects are no longer on the playing field. If the bubble has acquired a complete face, the player moves on to the next level; otherwise, one life is lost and the level must be replayed. Alternatively, the player can skip the level by going down the drain when it flashes green after the bubble has obtained a face. Entering the drain while the bubble is too small costs one life.

• Illustration — Bubbles followed Williams Electronics' design trend in the early 1980s of using the Motorola 6809 microprocessor (pictured) as the arcade machine's main CPU. Bubbles was developed and published by Williams Electronics. The game uses monaural sound and raster graphics on a 19 inch CRT monitor. Like Williams' other early arcade games, Bubbles hardware is similar to that of the company's first video game, the 1981 arcade game Defender. Bubbles hardware consists of five circuit boards—a main central processing unit (CPU), a read-only memory (ROM) board, a soundboard, an interface controller board, and the power supply—that coordinate different processes required to operate the game. It uses a 1 MHz Motorola 6809E microprocessor as the main CPU, which executes the game code and assembles the graphics to display on the screen. Bubbles game code, which was programmed in assembly language, and graphics data are stored on a 48 KB ROM board. The soundboard consists of its own dedicated ROM and CPU to store sound data and play the sound effects, respectively. The initial concept was conceived by John Kotlarik, who aimed to make a non-violent game. Inspired by Pac-Man, he envisioned similar gameplay in an open playing field rather than in a maze. Python Anghelo furthered the concept by creating artwork and a scenario. Kotlarik designed the protagonist to have fluid movement like it was traveling on a slick surface. The control scheme allows the digital input to operate similar to an analogue one. He programmed the bubble to accelerate in the direction the joystick is held. Once the joystick returns to its neutral position, the bubble will coast as the velocity slowly decreases. Anghelo designed the artwork for the wooden cabinets as well as a new cylindrical, plastic cabinet. This plastic model was dubbed the "Duramold" unit. Gary Berge, a mechanical engineer, created the new cabinets with a rotational molding process. Though the plastic cabinets were durable, they would shrink over time, occasionally causing the device to become inoperable. Williams Electronics used this cabinet for only two other games: Blaster and Sinistar. The arcade unit includes settings to adjust the difficulty. Bubbles arcade cabinets have varying degrees of rarity. The cocktail and cabaret cabinets are the rarest, followed by the plastic and upright versions; the plastic models are more valuable among collectors.

Williams promoted the game at the Amusement Operators Expo (AOE) in March 1983 at the O'Hare Exposition Center in Chicago, Illinois. Afterward, it registered Bubbles program and graphics with the United States Copyright Office on May 2, 1983. The company then filed the stylized logo with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on May 13, 1983. After Bubbles release in arcades, the game was neither followed by a sequel nor ported to home consoles at the time. Williams Entertainment would later include Bubbles in several of its arcade compilations over a decade after its initial release: the 1996 Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits, the 2000 Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits (Dreamcast version only), the 2003 Midway Arcade Treasures, the 2012 Midway Arcade Origins, and the 2022 Midway Legacy Edition Arcade1Up cabinet. Many of the anthologies were created by Digital Eclipse, who used emulation to run the original source code. While the developers focused on including highly recognizable games, the team was able to easily add Bubbles as a bonus title due to the similarity between the hardware of Williams' early arcade games. In 2000, a web-based version of Bubbles, along with nine other classic arcade games, was published on Shockwave.com. Four years later, Midway Games launched a website featuring the Shockwave versions.