4 ms·

Parsing the C64 Bubble Bobble Wind Currents

151 points by geon 2y ago

wzdd 2y ago
Nice analysis, and cool to see how simple it is to get quite a satisfying effect. Also quite fun to see that the level symmetry was indeed exploited multiple ways to save space. If the author is here, they write '"@123" are the first 4 entries in the default c64 character set' but likely meant @ABC.
- geon 2y ago
  Dammit, fixed. And thanks!
  - djmips 2y ago
    I very much enjoyed the article but the subtext that 6502 assembler is worse than Cobol is quite the slight as a life long 6502 coder. ;-)
actionfromafar 2y ago
In two player mode, still even today, C64 Bubble Bubble is one of the best casual games. I can sit down almost anyone on the couch and they'll enjoy at least a few rounds, experienced video game players or not. That the game design and implementation cuts through FOUR decades of time to be enjoyable says something. There are many old games which still are good but not as accessible to a modern audience. There are even more old games which are impressive even in retrospect, but don't play well today.
- mbajkowski 2y ago
  Indeed, my kids who are 5 and 8 enjoy it about just as much as Mario Kart 8 - especially the earlier levels which require less of the balloon jumping.
- fidotron 2y ago
  Bubble Bobble, arcade and ports, were wildly popular especially in the UK, to the point that when I was working as a game dev in London in the early 2000s if you mentioned what you did to a random person the chances were they would start lamenting how complicated these modern 3D games were and how after a bit of digging it would turn out they just loved Bubble Bobble/Rainbow Islands etc. I think it's up there with Asteroids, Defender and Robotron honestly.
- dfxm12 2y ago
  Is there anything specific about the C64 version that sets it apart from the arcade, NES or other versions? As for design, old arcade games had to both look and be fun fast in order to earn your quarter. As for implementation, the story goes that the original source code for the arcade game was lost and all ports had to be done by reverse engineering an arcade board.
  - _sys49152 2y ago
    c64 was just so much smoother playing + looked better visually. not choppy.
  - geon 2y ago
    I don’t think source was ever used for porting in those days anyway. The asm wasn’t directly portable for sure. The c64 levels are pretty close to the arcade, apart from the arcade having 26 rows of tiles rather than the c64’s 25. The nes versions levels deviate wildly. Some have been moved and some are replaced.
    - ahartmetz 2y ago
      Not at all? If I was porting a game, I'd at least want to make important behaviors 100% true to the original - accelerations, jumping physics, hitboxes, speeds... these are pretty tedious to reverse-engineer without source. OTOH, the source was assembly and the binaries could be disassembled...
      - beagle3 2y ago
        Not at all. Frame rates varies widely, resolutions varied widely. The exact behavior was in e.g. pixels/frame, and you had to work hard to get the same feel on a 50hz 256x192 4Mhz z80 ZX Spectrum, as you did on the 60hz 160x200 1Mhz 6510 C64 ; Also abilities differed widely : C64 had hardware sprites, tile (text) mode and hardware scrolling; Spectrum had nothing but a frame buffer (it did have a much faster memory copy instruction, LDIR, but that didn’t compete with hardware scrolling). And the original arcade, of course, had multiple playfield with hardware scaling, and often game-specific hardware (in the early days at least)
- jandrese 2y ago
  Was the C64 version available as a cartridge or did you have to load it in via the painfully slow floppy drive or worse off of a tape? An advantage of the NES version is you could be playing it within seconds of hitting the power button, which made it great for casual pick up games.
  - fidotron 2y ago
    This reply is amazing because it's like people from totally different universes trying to communicate. The sort of people playing Bubble Bobble in the 80s on C64s would almost certainly have been doing so from tape, more than likely pirated. The NES was not really on the radar of these people at all. I heard of C64 piracy operations in northern europe where the local radio station would play C64 games for recording on sunday afternoons. That's how pervasive it was.
    - ajuc 2y ago
      Or you could live in Poland and only get C64 and (clones of) NES in 90s. And copyright only started being a thing in like 1993. So before that public radiostations broadcasted computer software sometimes :) And there were open air markets with pirated games in the center of most big cities. That's where CD Projekt RED guys started - by selling games they got by paper mail from abroad on these markets.
      - rasz 2y ago
        Copyright reform was in 1994, remember after that date tables full of floppies started turning into kids running around with paper catalogues and asking "gry uzytki, co potrzeba?". CD Project guys did a bit more than just sell games :). Marcin Iwiński aka S.S. Captain might have cracked Amiga games himself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x_Q4L99ZrY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x_Q4L99ZrY „Again S.S. Captain. Again of Katharsis. Again the No. 1 in Poland and again with a new import/of co2!/. Mini intro by Raf. Wonderful tune by Martin Galway. Font/logo by Jerry. Why the Polish scene is so boring??? ; no copy parties. No cool demos. No quality groups with quality stuffs etc. Its' a big shit! isn't it???” https://spidersweb.pl/plus/2021/07/cd-projekt-story-witcher-cyberpunk https://spidersweb.pl/plus/2021/07/cd-projekt-story-witcher-... They went legit in 1994. I think theirs was one of the only few tents selling original games at the Warsaw weekly computer trade fair https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=88993 https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=88993 'History of Polish computer trade fair 1986-20xx. HD video/hires images from Giełda Komputerowa na Grzybowskiej (1993).' There is maybe 5% chance CD Project founders Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński https://spidersweb.pl/plus/2021/07/witcher-cdprojekt-cyberpunk#:~:text=in%20their%20school%20times https://spidersweb.pl/plus/2021/07/witcher-cdprojekt-cyberpu... were captured in this picture selling pirated games in 1993 :) https://c7.alamy.com/comp/2HADG1M/warszawa-031993-centralna-gieda-komputerowa-u-zbiegu-ulic-grzybowskiej-i-jana-pawa-ii-nz-stoisko-z-programami-komputerowymi-i-grami-na-dyskietkach-mw-papteodor-walczak-dokadny-dzie-wydarzenia-nieustalony-warsaw-march-1993-computer-fair-at-the-junction-of-grzybowska-and-jana-pawla-ii-streets-pictured-a-stall-with-computer-programmes-on-floppy-disks-mw-papteodor-walczak-event-day-unknown-2HADG1M.jpg https://c7.alamy.com/comp/2HADG1M/warszawa-031993-centralna-...
Dwedit 2y ago
Back in 1998, a level editor was made for the Arcade version of Bubble Bobble, named "Patch-A-Bobble". This level editor revealed the directional airflow in the levels.
- kstenerud 2y ago
  I had a lot of fun writing that! The data structure allowed for airflow to be specified freely for everything except the very top and very bottom - for those you had a choice between solid brick, flow up, and flow down (for each side).
  - Dwedit 2y ago
    It was that utility that inspired me to write the TI83 version of Bubble Bobble.
drpgq 2y ago
I remember the seventh row, third column board being annoyingly difficult for the C64 version.
taki 2y ago
I still love that game - and this is a thing of beauty. Thank you for sharing.
kstenerud 2y ago
Haha, reminds me of a Windows utility I wrote a looong time ago called Patch-A-Bobble: https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/142/ https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/142/ It was a win32 app that would read all the graphics from the Bubble Bobble ROM itself, then let you edit the levels, save them, and patch the modified levels back into the ROM so that you could play them on MAME (or even put them in an arcade cabinet). edit: Oh, I actually uploaded it to github: https://github.com/kstenerud/patch-a-bobble https://github.com/kstenerud/patch-a-bobble

151 points by geon 2y ago

wzdd 2y ago

Nice analysis, and cool to see how simple it is to get quite a satisfying effect. Also quite fun to see that the level symmetry was indeed exploited multiple ways to save space. If the author is here, they write '"@123" are the first 4 entries in the default c64 character set' but likely meant @ABC.

geon 2y ago
Dammit, fixed. And thanks!
- djmips 2y ago
  I very much enjoyed the article but the subtext that 6502 assembler is worse than Cobol is quite the slight as a life long 6502 coder. ;-)

actionfromafar 2y ago

In two player mode, still even today, C64 Bubble Bubble is one of the best casual games. I can sit down almost anyone on the couch and they'll enjoy at least a few rounds, experienced video game players or not. That the game design and implementation cuts through FOUR decades of time to be enjoyable says something. There are many old games which still are good but not as accessible to a modern audience. There are even more old games which are impressive even in retrospect, but don't play well today.

mbajkowski 2y ago
Indeed, my kids who are 5 and 8 enjoy it about just as much as Mario Kart 8 - especially the earlier levels which require less of the balloon jumping.
fidotron 2y ago
Bubble Bobble, arcade and ports, were wildly popular especially in the UK, to the point that when I was working as a game dev in London in the early 2000s if you mentioned what you did to a random person the chances were they would start lamenting how complicated these modern 3D games were and how after a bit of digging it would turn out they just loved Bubble Bobble/Rainbow Islands etc. I think it's up there with Asteroids, Defender and Robotron honestly.
dfxm12 2y ago
Is there anything specific about the C64 version that sets it apart from the arcade, NES or other versions? As for design, old arcade games had to both look and be fun fast in order to earn your quarter. As for implementation, the story goes that the original source code for the arcade game was lost and all ports had to be done by reverse engineering an arcade board.
- _sys49152 2y ago
  c64 was just so much smoother playing + looked better visually. not choppy.
- geon 2y ago
  I don’t think source was ever used for porting in those days anyway. The asm wasn’t directly portable for sure. The c64 levels are pretty close to the arcade, apart from the arcade having 26 rows of tiles rather than the c64’s 25. The nes versions levels deviate wildly. Some have been moved and some are replaced.
  - ahartmetz 2y ago
    Not at all? If I was porting a game, I'd at least want to make important behaviors 100% true to the original - accelerations, jumping physics, hitboxes, speeds... these are pretty tedious to reverse-engineer without source. OTOH, the source was assembly and the binaries could be disassembled...
    - beagle3 2y ago
      Not at all. Frame rates varies widely, resolutions varied widely. The exact behavior was in e.g. pixels/frame, and you had to work hard to get the same feel on a 50hz 256x192 4Mhz z80 ZX Spectrum, as you did on the 60hz 160x200 1Mhz 6510 C64 ; Also abilities differed widely : C64 had hardware sprites, tile (text) mode and hardware scrolling; Spectrum had nothing but a frame buffer (it did have a much faster memory copy instruction, LDIR, but that didn’t compete with hardware scrolling). And the original arcade, of course, had multiple playfield with hardware scaling, and often game-specific hardware (in the early days at least)
jandrese 2y ago
Was the C64 version available as a cartridge or did you have to load it in via the painfully slow floppy drive or worse off of a tape? An advantage of the NES version is you could be playing it within seconds of hitting the power button, which made it great for casual pick up games.
- fidotron 2y ago
  This reply is amazing because it's like people from totally different universes trying to communicate. The sort of people playing Bubble Bobble in the 80s on C64s would almost certainly have been doing so from tape, more than likely pirated. The NES was not really on the radar of these people at all. I heard of C64 piracy operations in northern europe where the local radio station would play C64 games for recording on sunday afternoons. That's how pervasive it was.
  - ajuc 2y ago
    Or you could live in Poland and only get C64 and (clones of) NES in 90s. And copyright only started being a thing in like 1993. So before that public radiostations broadcasted computer software sometimes :) And there were open air markets with pirated games in the center of most big cities. That's where CD Projekt RED guys started - by selling games they got by paper mail from abroad on these markets.
    - rasz 2y ago
      Copyright reform was in 1994, remember after that date tables full of floppies started turning into kids running around with paper catalogues and asking "gry uzytki, co potrzeba?". CD Project guys did a bit more than just sell games :). Marcin Iwiński aka S.S. Captain might have cracked Amiga games himself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x_Q4L99ZrY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x_Q4L99ZrY „Again S.S. Captain. Again of Katharsis. Again the No. 1 in Poland and again with a new import/of co2!/. Mini intro by Raf. Wonderful tune by Martin Galway. Font/logo by Jerry. Why the Polish scene is so boring??? ; no copy parties. No cool demos. No quality groups with quality stuffs etc. Its' a big shit! isn't it???” https://spidersweb.pl/plus/2021/07/cd-projekt-story-witcher-cyberpunk https://spidersweb.pl/plus/2021/07/cd-projekt-story-witcher-... They went legit in 1994. I think theirs was one of the only few tents selling original games at the Warsaw weekly computer trade fair https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=88993 https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=88993 'History of Polish computer trade fair 1986-20xx. HD video/hires images from Giełda Komputerowa na Grzybowskiej (1993).' There is maybe 5% chance CD Project founders Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński https://spidersweb.pl/plus/2021/07/witcher-cdprojekt-cyberpunk#:~:text=in%20their%20school%20times https://spidersweb.pl/plus/2021/07/witcher-cdprojekt-cyberpu... were captured in this picture selling pirated games in 1993 :) https://c7.alamy.com/comp/2HADG1M/warszawa-031993-centralna-gieda-komputerowa-u-zbiegu-ulic-grzybowskiej-i-jana-pawa-ii-nz-stoisko-z-programami-komputerowymi-i-grami-na-dyskietkach-mw-papteodor-walczak-dokadny-dzie-wydarzenia-nieustalony-warsaw-march-1993-computer-fair-at-the-junction-of-grzybowska-and-jana-pawla-ii-streets-pictured-a-stall-with-computer-programmes-on-floppy-disks-mw-papteodor-walczak-event-day-unknown-2HADG1M.jpg https://c7.alamy.com/comp/2HADG1M/warszawa-031993-centralna-...

Dwedit 2y ago

Back in 1998, a level editor was made for the Arcade version of Bubble Bobble, named "Patch-A-Bobble". This level editor revealed the directional airflow in the levels.

kstenerud 2y ago
I had a lot of fun writing that! The data structure allowed for airflow to be specified freely for everything except the very top and very bottom - for those you had a choice between solid brick, flow up, and flow down (for each side).
- Dwedit 2y ago
  It was that utility that inspired me to write the TI83 version of Bubble Bobble.

drpgq 2y ago

I remember the seventh row, third column board being annoyingly difficult for the C64 version.

taki 2y ago

I still love that game - and this is a thing of beauty. Thank you for sharing.

kstenerud 2y ago

Haha, reminds me of a Windows utility I wrote a looong time ago called Patch-A-Bobble: https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/142/ https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/142/ It was a win32 app that would read all the graphics from the Bubble Bobble ROM itself, then let you edit the levels, save them, and patch the modified levels back into the ROM so that you could play them on MAME (or even put them in an arcade cabinet). edit: Oh, I actually uploaded it to github: https://github.com/kstenerud/patch-a-bobble https://github.com/kstenerud/patch-a-bobble