TinyBubbles
This game is my very first 6510 assembly game for the Commodore 64. It stands for my participation to the C64 Cassette 50 Charity Competition: https://itch.io/jam/the-c64-cassette-50-charity-competition
The rules are very simple and based on a famous puzzle game. Throw bubbles in the gaming area in order to empty the playfield. When 3 bubbles are connected, they explode (+5pts) and cause the neighbouring orphaned bubbles to fall (+10pts). There are 3 different levels that loop once completed.
The game is lost when the fired bubble runs out of space.
You have only one attempt per game, but in return you are not stressed by time .
Controls:
Joystick in Port 2. Press left and right to move the target and change the aiming angle. Press fire to release the bubble.
According to the competition rules, the binary executable is lower than 4Kbytes and cannot write to memory higher than $0FFF. Tested on real hardware (it need to be loaded from disk/tape in order for the memory trick to work).
UPDATE : Tiny Bubbles is now downloadable as PRG and D64 image. Please mount and load disk image with no memory injection (required by the loader hack). Enjoy !
Code, Gfx and sound by Pixs.
Download
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Comments
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Pretty good! well done
Really a nice game and a good variant of the "Puzzle Bobble (Bust a Move)" game-principle. Would it be possible, to realize a VERSUS mode and add CPU-players, against which the human player can compete then?
That would be great, especially if you had these CPU opponents in different selectable levels of difficulty. Puzzle Bobble style games are by far the most fun, when they are played against each other, but unfortunately you usually don't have any other human players at hand, so CPU-opponents would be really great to have.
Of course, the game-size then would be bigger than 4kbytes, when this would be added, but that wouldn't matter, cause a Deluxe Version of the game could follow the original 4kb version. :-)
This is just lovely!
It controls perfectly and the graphics are very nice and readable.
Love the bricks.
There is just an issue I noted that in the end of the level in Puzzle Bobble you just get the type of balls that are left on the screen (if only green and blue are left you will get either a green or blue as next ball or something similar).
In your version you can get any ball color always so it is quite hard to finish the level.
As a nice to have I wish it had music but also like this it is a very nice game that I will play with pleasure on my real C64 :D
Hi ! Thank you so much for your nice review. You've got it right. My game differs from Puzzle Booble about the player ball color. Acutally, the game has to run in lower than 4kb and I had to make trade-offs on some features (gameplay and music). You do it the right way. This game is much smoother on the real hardware :)
Very cool game
Thank you for you comment, Simon. I'm glad you have fun with this tiny game !
Now, that the Cometition is over, please make it available as a download. :)
Your wish is granted! You can now play on the real hardware :)
Thanks :) Unfortunately it doesn't work on my C64. I put the .d64 file onto my sd2iec, but it gets stuck at the character screen. In vice it works perfectly fine. Do I have to perform some kind of magic to make it work on the real C64? Or is it just incompatible with the sd2iec?
Make sure you load from your IEC device using the LOAD command from basic. Don't enter any other command or load an other programm just after boot. If your sd2iec device has device ID 8, use LOAD "*",8,1. I've tested it on a real 1541 drive. If required, I'll publish another (larger) version with no loader hack.
It finally works. I changed the device number of the sd2iec from 9 to 8 and loaded the game directly from basic. I don't know what exactly did the trick though.
I bet on the second factor. The basic loader is hijacked in Tiny Bubbles so that the return address of the loading routine points directly to the entry point of the game.
Great game. When can I get a real copy!
Hi ! The program file will be available as soon as the conquest is completed.
Your wish is granted! You can now play on the real hardware :)
Ha! - very cool :) - how can I run this on my C64?
Hi ! The program file will be available as soon as the conquest is completed.
Thanks! - looking forward to it :)
Your wish is granted! You can now play on the real hardware :)
Oooh coolest :) - thanks!
Well playable and good looking game for that size!
Thank you very much! It was a real 'puzzle' to get the engine to fit in 4kB.
I love it !!!!
👍 I'm glad to share the same fun I had while coding this tiny game ;
awesome!
thanks a lot Mike !
Superb stuff! :)
Thank you very much, I am honored because I really appreciate your work!