I don’t know if it’s Atari’s “fault” as they’ve released the first Bubble bobble game in 1986, but I know that bubble games are for several years now a phenomena. Bubble shooters, bubble popping, bubble matching – you name it, there are now over 246,000 games in Google Play related to bubbles which shows how popular these types of games still are.
I have a friend that’s fascinated with bubble games and everytime you show him one he just has to play it. He’s acting like the yellow fish from Finding Nemo, the one that was obsessed with bubbles, here’s the video for those that don’t remember:
Why wouldn’t bubble games be popular? Everyone has now and then to wait for something and that’s the perfect moment to kill some time in a fun way. Luckily we can do that with smartphones and bubble games are the ideal Snake replacement: they’re easy to play and fun to do it.
Developed by Tooflya, Signs HD is one of those Android games that you can play while when you need to kill some time (i.e. waiting in your doctor’s office, waiting for your wife to get ready, …). It’s easy enough to play (my 3-year old son played it after I showed him how), fun and eye-catching as it has beautiful HD graphics. While it’s not actually bubbles that need to be grouped and popped, it’s still within the same idea. You are given a screen full of “signs” (actually some spheres with an eye and optionally mouth) and your goal is to tap on a group of identical signs to break those and increase your score, all in under a minute.
The main game screen in Signs HD
Here’s an overview of its features and gameplay:
- Tap to pop the bubbles. When the game starts you see on the screen 20 signs (eye-bubbles) in different colors. If there are 2 or more identical forms next to each other you have to tap on them to break those. Others will take their place and your score will increase. There’s only a time-limited gameplay mode, which means that you have 1 minute to break as many eye-bubbles as possible. Each time you break a group your score increases and you get stars, when you pop many in a short time you’ll get a streak bonus. The game supports achievements too, so you’ll get those when you get to certain levels.
- 3 difficulty levels. You can play the game in the Easy, Normal or Expert mode depending on how difficult you want the game to be. If in the easy mode you’ll see more bubbles of the same type grouped together, thus easier to play, in the hard mode there are additional colored signs thus more difficult to find a group of identical bubbles. The game includes a ROLL button and if you press it your signs/eye-bubbles will be replaced entirely by new ones – useful if you end up with no matching bubbles on the screen.
- In-app purchases. During each game you gain stars based on how well you are doing. The game has an in-app store where for now you can buy different signs/eye-bubbles (with mouth, teeth or other designs). The game currency is the star, thus the more stars you have you can purchase better items.
- Music and sound effects. The game has its own custom music and interesting sound effects that make the game more enjoyable.
- HD graphics. The graphics stand out as they are vividly colored and nicely crafted.
You can see an overview on how the gameplay is by watching the YouTube video presentation below:
The game is free to play with a minor unobtrusive ad here and there. You can download and start playing it directly from Google Play: Download Signs HD. Optionally you can visit the developer’s website to see more of the games they develop at http://www.tooflya.com/en/
