Bubble Puzzle by Philip Jaquenoud is a Palm OS port of the arcade hit Bust-A-Move/Puzzle Bobble. Bust-A-Move took more than its fair share of my money in the arcade so I was very excited when I saw that it had been adapted for play on my Palm and Visor.

I’ve been playing with Bubble Puzzle for a few weeks and have become very fond of this game. Mr. Jaquenoud has taken the time to create a very authentic recreation of Bust-A-Move, without the quarter slot of course.

Pros: Authentic reproduction of the original. Although the puzzles aren’t the same Bubble Puzzle plays nearly as well as Bust-A-Move from the arcade. I played the game for countless hours in the arcade, and have played it nearly as much on my Visor Prism and Palm IIIc. I even played it a few times on a friends Palm Vx just to see how the game played without color. I found that the game was nearly as fun in color, the bubbles were easily distinguished in black and white because of the different markings on the bubbles.

Cons: Although I really enjoy playing Bubble Puzzle the game still has room for improvement. Overall the game seemed to be very well written, but I did find one bug. On some of the higher levels I would occasionally run into a problem where the bubble that I had shot would fly off the screen. My Palm would freeze up and a reset was necessary.

Bubble Puzzle also lacks in game menus. You can’t quit a game or start a new game without dying. You can switch to another application by using the application silk screen icon, but there is no option within the game to quit. I’ve been playing the game and someone near me wanted to try it out, and I would have to kill myself so they could start a game on their own. In instances such as this it would be very beneficial to have a shortcut or menu option of starting a new game.