Drive-by review: Bubbles the Cat
(Written March 2024)
In 2020, I bought Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, an itch.io bundle with over 1000 games and software for $5. Predictably, I didn't really touch it afterward. I played Night in the Woods, but I can't recall any other game I downloaded besides that. To be fair, my laptop at the time was on its last leg. And I spent lockdown getting into idiotic Discord drama, marathoning My Little Pony episodes after fixing french-press coffee, and playing Animal Crossing with weird guys on 4chan. Not my proudest year...
I feel pretty bad for letting these games sit... I've periodically skimmed through the list of software I now own and downloaded whatever looked interesting. I have no excuse to be bored when I have these sitting on a folder on my desktop. So I decided to go ahead and randomly select a game to spend my night playing. And that game is...
Leap, blast and bob your way through over a hundred levels of cute platforming action in BUBBLES THE CAT!
Bubbles the Cat is probably the most complex game I've ever played. When I chose this randomly from a list, I didn't expect to get hit in the face with a deep, novel-length story and worldbuilding. Just kidding, it's just a cute platform game about a cat. There's not really much of a story outside of the illustrations shown when starting the game; Bubbles is playing outside as normal, but follows a trail of bubbles floating outside of a busted part of the fence. She follows the bubbles... and inevtiably falls into a sewer. Maybe that's why you should keep your cats indoors...
The first thing I noticed about the controls was that Bubbles moves by herself - this is a single-button game. The only thing you control is how Bubbles jumps. Bubbles jumps with, well, bubbles, but there's only so many she can use at a time before recharging the meter. I like this a lot, but I made the mistake of assuming this would be a simple turn your brain off and relax game. Nope! Later on in the first world alone there are enemies and stage hazards introduced. Now the simple controls are bit more complex with timining and conserving your bubbles. This is a good reminder of what I like about platform games, which is fitting since my last drive-by review was of a platformer.
The stages are simple on paper, you just maneuver Bubbles through the mazes and make it to the checkered flag at the end. But if you want more of a challenge, it's there: Every level has a certain amount of fish treats (with a cute sound effect when you collect them), and a PAR time. Completing a level gives you a star, but so does collecting all the fish and completeing the PAR. Doing all three will give you a platinum star, which unlocks more bonuses. The levels are pretty short, but if you have a completionist streak, you'll probably spend a longer time playing.
Later levels introduce different bubble powerups that do more besides jumping higher. My favorite was the bomb, but the one that makes walls is a bit hard to figure out when I just wanted to complete the level already. The dove powerup introduced in world two that lets you float between jumps was nice, on the other hand. There's more introduced later on like the ghost and wrecking ball. I initially decided that I would play a few levels before doing a verdict on this, but... I just couldn't stop playing. Even when I died, I had a compulsion to just keep replaying until I got it right. Yep, this game is pretty addicting in a good way. I was going to stop after finishing world one, but I was on my way through world two until I decided to take a frustration break. There are six worlds overall, and 125 levels. That's a lot for me, but if that's somehow not good enough for you, there's bonus secret levels.
The graphics and sound are okay. The bundle also included the soundtrack, which I went ahead and downloaded. The stage music is pleasant and makes good background noise, but the title screen music can be annoying if you're not in a good mood. The sound that plays when Bubbles is damaged is also a complete jumpscare and I was very close to muting the sound entirely for that reason. There's also a way to customize Bubbles by changing her color, giving her a hat, or changing the trail she leaves behind, but I had no interest in this. The Steam page brags that you can unlock these in-game without microtransactions, so I'll give it points for that.
I don't play games nearly as much as I used to... But if I wanted to compare this another game, the fun I had with Bubbles the Cat brought me back to when I absolutely addicted to Mighty Switch Force 1&2; Another platform game that's simple at a glance but has a huge incentive to speedrun and collect everything. I absolutely will be playing this game more if I ever have a specific itch for a simple platform game with a good challenge. Side note, but even though I played this on PC, Bubbles the Cat was also intended to be a mobile game. Desperate to fill the void on your phone after finally uninstalling all those stupid social media apps and gachas? Bubbles the Cat has you covered. Get it on Itch.io, Steam, or whatever app store your phone uses.