Buggle Facebook Game Review

The twist on this bubble game is that you basically only need to drop the “Wasp Bubble” which means you do NOT have to clear the board (for some levels at least). As you drop balls into the honey pots below, a sliding scale increases your honey reserves which provides opportunities for bonus points on large combination pops. Once you clear the level, the bear dances and your honey pours!  You also earn more reward coins based on how fully you complete a level (ie. 3-2-1 stars).

Levels also have different challenges. For example in Level 2 you only have 50 bubbles to shoot. As you progress, you obtain new items like Keys to unlock levels, bubble bombs, rainbow bubbles etc. You’ll lose lives pretty quick as the game is set up to look deceptively easy. The challenge is in the bubble budget – you will lose a lot of lives by running out of bubbles even when making all the right moves.  This slant in the game is common enough that it makes the game a frustrating affair.

This is made all the more challenging by the fact that there is usually a bubble limit on these levels. My first piece of advice is to read the level intros carefully so you know what to steer clear from and/or what the target is. The intial stages are painfully easy. But that’s the trick. What will kill you is the combination of poor bubble dispensing coupled with the bubble budget or limit.

What I mean is watch out for a bit of uneven ‘randomness’ in bubbles to shoot. I once had 8 red bubbles in a row with nowhere to really put them or advance forward with.  Or another time I kept getting red and green several times in a row where all I had exposed on the play area was yellow, orange and dark blue.  This result is dwindling down  your allotment. I fired the rest of the bubbles perfectly but still lost the level because I ran out of bubbles.

While there isn’t much you can do in this situation, my strategy is simple: don’t make mistakes by wasting bubbles, and look for chain connections that you can break to:

1) expose more colors

2) reveal another large chain to break

3) release or lead to releasing the trapped bee.”

Also try to use the sides to bank your shots to make larger bubble drops. Remember, the goal is free the bees, NOT to clear the board (unless the challenge on that level IS to drop all bubbles too). With falling ceilings, definitely use the SPACEBAR to switch bubbles if it makes sense to do so.

Randomness – The bubble budget and coincidence of all the wrong bubbles appearing near the end of the level seem deliberately designed for you to fail and use up a life (presumably so you can buy more when you run out). Or maybe I’m just venting my frustration at losing certain levels. But in either case, the key tip here is to save your bubbles and always make sure you’re clearing as many as possible in each shot which also exposing as many colors as possible so you avoid wastage.

Squeezing – You can’t really squeeze bubbles through on Buggle. If you’re even a little bit too close, it will stick to the first bubble it grazes past.  I have been able to get the odd squeeze in, but not consistently – and I’m a pro at bubble games.  Maybe it’s too much honey in there.

Shooting Aim Guide – Don’t trust this. You can aim through bubbles right to the top of the playing area, but unlike other bubble games, the ruler just shows you the bubble’s angle or trajectory making no allowances for obstacles. If you’re not sure how this will affect you, see ‘squeezing’ above.

Good Luck! You’ll need it the way a good blackjack player needs it when betting against the house.