If you were like us, you were busy ‘reading’ the Family Album catalogue at the age of 14, not designing bloody iPhone apps! We take a US wunderkind’s Bubble Ball for a spin.
You’ve probably heard the hype surrounding Bubble Ball already. Developed by 14-year-old American boy wonder Robert Nay, the title was created at a public library in Utah, reached the App Store on December 29 and topped the Store’s free download chart, eventually being downloaded over 2 million times in just over two weeks. It’s a great story, but is it also a great game?
The self-taught Nay (who is apparently a musical prodigy also) created Bubble Ball to see ‘if I could do it’ and countless hours and 4,000 lines of code later, he did it. What marks Bubble Ball apart from its iPhone competitors is not just its unique success story, the puzzle title is also unlike any other currently found on the App Store.
The core principle of each Bubble Ball is to use shapes contained within each level to help the titular bubble reach its goal (represented by a chequered flag). Players must place geometrical shapes in the right order and when they’re ready to press start, gravity will take its course and hopefully you’ll have guided the ball to safety.
Shapes consist of wooden shapes (affected by gravity) and metal shapes (not affected), while powerups can be activated once per cycle, ranging from speed bursts to powerups that cause gravity shifts. Yes, all this was apparently created by a 14 year old!
We probably should’ve warned you about the graphics earlier…
At present, Bubble Ball features 21 levels and not much more options other than the ability to change your bubble into one of seven different colours. In fact, the key impression that the game has been designed by a 14 year old is in the title’s extremely sparse ‘presentation’, with non-existent music and basic sound effects. The touch screen responsiveness is hit and miss, sometimes responding to your gestures and sometimes stubbornly refusing to do so, while the decision to place ‘menu’ directly beside ‘start/stop’ is counter-intuitive.
If that all sounds a bit harsh, it’s because there’s no reason Bubble Ball shouldn’t be judged against that of its iPhone rivals, never mind its fantastic backstory. In that sense, the game is still remarkably diverting, with clever use of physics and the ingenious move to include static and gravity-based obstacles within each level. On the other hand, with high-profile efforts such as Cut the Rope standing out as its immediate competitors, it’s hard to recommend Bubble Ball to a similar degree.
A hugely promising debut and a story to tell your friends, Bubble Ball is a remarkable achievement and considering its inception, it’s a miracle that it can hold its own in the fierce arena of App Store puzzle titles. That it does is a testament to old-fashioned gameplay mechanics and a 14 year old with a presumably enlarged superbrain of some sort (don’t quote us on that). There’s still plenty of superior physics-based puzzle titles out there but not many that are free and even less that were created by ankle-biting puberty entrants. With that in mind, we’re not going to burst young Robert Nay’s bubble just yet.
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