Bubble Shooter

Introduction

Download

Playing

Interface

Registration

About

Bubble Shooter is a new game combining simple rules with great wealth of combinations and various strategies. It takes the best from some of the most popular games, adding its own new and cool features. Beware, it is very addictive; do not start playing if you have some important appointments today ;) We hope you will have lots of fun!

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

"Bubble Shooter" is compatible with COLOR devices working under Palm OS 3.5 or above: Palm IIIc, Palm m505, Visor Prism, Sony PEG N700C, Sony PEG N710C.

For non color devices, please download the relevant copy of the program.

INTRODUCTION

You can learn to play "Bubble Shooter" in a minute but if you want to win - you will need to try hard :). The goal is simple - to clear all the bubbles from the board, shooting with bubbles of different colors. If your "bullet" joins a bunch of more than two bubbles of the same color - they all explode.
In the contrast to other similar games this one has no time limitation at all: you can aim as long as you want. Moreover you can shoot wherever you want pointing the spot on the board with the stylus. EVERYTHING IS SIMPLE! BUT... In the case of several misfires a new line of color bubbles appears at the top. There can be no draw in this game, either you clean all the bubbles off, or they move all the way down on you.
It's rather difficult to classify this game. This is surely a board game, it's a puzzle (sometimes you have to think hard before shooting ), it's a strategy (each player can choose his own strategy to score a great number of points), and last but not least it's a shooter (sometimes you have to use your sniper skills to shoot), it's a billiards in some way (shots can be reflected from the side walls), and for your colleagues, watching your skilled game with quick speed of shots - it's a cool action with explosions, and instant changes at the playing field. So, the genre of this game you can choose for yourself...

DOWNLOADING

To download "Bubble Shooter", use the ordinary Palm DeskTop HotSync process or equivalent to install Bubbles.prc on your device.

PLAYING THE GAME

At the start of the game the top half of the board is filled with color bubbles. The bubble that you will shoot with is in the center of the bottom line. In the right bottom corner there are the points you have scored and the symbol of the level (N - novice, E - expert, M - master). Small bubbles at left show the number of misfires allowed till a new line of bubbles pops up.
The shot is made by pointing the place where the bubble should go on the board.

The peculiarities of bubbles' flight
As these bubbles are soft and slippery, and are moving fast, a flying bubble might not stick to another one if it touches it slightly. The flying bubble intends to move as high as possible that's why it can sneak in between other bubbles.

Score calculation
The points for exploded bubbles are calculated in the following way. You receive 10 points for each of the first three exploded bubbles, for next three - 20 apiece, and so on. Sometimes after your shot some bubbles would fall apart from the rest. Those separated bubbles will explode too. It is well worth trying to arrange such avalanches, as they will give you ten times more points than ordinary bursts.

Bubbles advance
You are allowed a certain number of misfires till bubbles move down. The number of misfires changes from maximum to one cyclically (the maximum is different for different skill levels). That is, at first the maximum number of misfires is provided, then maximum-1, maximum-2 and so on.

Color shoot-out
If you shoot out all the bubbles of some color, say red, no more red bubbles will appear on the board. This would ease things considerably. However, after that every time you use up your silver balls, *two* new lines will appear. Two colors out - three lines will be appearing, and so forth.

Bonus
You receive a bonus of 10,000 points for the first color shoot-out, 20,000 - for the second, and so on. As a result, at the end of the game (if you shoot out all the bubbles, that is) you receive 210,000 bonus points plus the number of points scored by you in the course of the game.

That's all... Good luck!

INTERFACE

Icon
You can find the game under this icon on your device.

Splash screen

However good-looking it is, after a hundred launches you are going to be sick of the splash screen. That's why you can interrupt it, just pointing with stylus at any place on the board.

Window "Menu"

You can call Menu right from the game, clicking the button Menu on your device. It also appears at first launching of the game.

CONTINUE - appears if you have an unfinished game.
NEW GAME - launches new game. Attention ! If the game is not finished it will be interrupted without any warning. Be careful not to loose your game. Also, there is option AUTORUN for game (see below)
OPTIONS - game options
HELP - here you can receive short help and information about us.
TOP 10 - here your best results, which you can publish on the net, are stored
BUY ME - information how to register the game (*)
REGISTER - the form for entering the registration info (*)
EXIT - to quit the game (you can quit the game clicking the button applications from any window of the program

(*) - these items will be removed from the Menu after registration

Attention! All windows except the main one are dialogs. You can leave them using buttons (OK) and (CANCEL).

Window "Options"

You can set up your preferences in the window "OPTIONS". To change the option's value, just click the appropriate option name

LEVEL - here you can change the game level (novice, expert, master) (*)
SOUND - here you can tune the sound volume
AUTORUN - the option that allows you to start the game without the splash screen and menu (after the program launching you go directly to the playing field) (*)

(*) - these options are active in the registered version of the game .

Window "TOP 10"

You can look at best game results in this window.

NOVICE/MASTER/EXPERT - this button displays the results for different levels
PUBLISH - this button opens the window with the code for publishing the best result on the Web

Window "PUBLISH"
Shows the information needed to publish the best result in the chosen level on the Web. Attention! Please be careful when filling the code in the publish form at our site.

REGISTRATION

This game is shareware. If you want to play it after the two-week trial period, please register it. This can be done securely at http://absolutist.com/palm

Bubble Shooter game is a part of a game pack, which includes a few other games for Palm OS. You can buy it separately, or buy the whole pack. The latter option will save you some cash, and also quite a bit of your device's RAM, as the games are packed into one executable.

After the registration:

The reminder window "BUY ME" will not nag you any more.

Registered users have the following advantages:

to choose the game level (expert or master)
to launch the game in autorun mode (without splash screen or menu displaying)
to preserve the running game when you quit the program
to keep the points in the table of top scores

You can register the program at http://absolutist.com/palm

Window "BUY ME"
It contains the information about where and how you can register the game. This window appears also as the reminder in the course of the game, with growing frequency.

Window "REGISTER"

Enter your license information into the form: fill First and Last names into the first and second lines, respectively, and the license code into the last one. Two NAME fields has room for 12 characters each, including spaces; if your name, or surname, is longer just stop when no room is left, the registration code will still work. Using the virtual keyboard, you can enter letters, digits, a period, a dash and a space. You can choose the line tapping it with the stylus, the cursor (a blinking bubble) will show the line where you are now. When you begin typing, the prompts (FIRST/LAST NAME, REG CODE) will disappear.
Typing is done by means of the virtual keyboard, where the special buttons mean:
- space
- backspace (deletes of the symbol before the cursor)
- deletes the whole line

SUPPORT & UPGRADES

The information about new versions, upgrades, discounts, etc could always be found on the Web at http://www.absolutist.com/palm/bubbles/

Our support team can be reached by e-mail at support@absolutist.com

You will find more games for Windows PC and Palm handhelds here:
http://absolutist.com/games.html
http://absolutist.com/palm

And that's not all! Every time you need a litte diversion, welcome to our online section at
http://absolutist.com/online/

COPYRIGHT

Bubble Shooter is a shareware ("try before you buy") game.

Permission is granted to anyone to use this software. Redistributing the program is only allowed if it is not yet registered, except for the following restrictions:

The authors and origin of this software must be clearly stated, you must not claim that you wrote the original software.
This copyright notice may not be removed from or altered in a redistribution package.

Registered copies of Bubble Shooter cannot be further redistributed.

This software is provided 'as is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the Icestone Trustee Limited or Absolutist.com be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.