Bubble Bobble (Amiga)

I have two brothers and a sister. My sister knew so little about computers that I had to write a program to let her pass her computing ‘O’ level. One brother left home and got married early on, but me and our Sean grew up together with the whole home computer generation.

Sean is ten years younger than me, and when we first started playing games I could whip his butt every time because he was so young (I let him win occasionally – just to keep his interest). But as the years passed it became increasingly obvious that his teenage reactions were far superior to my ageing twenties senility. In short, he started to wipe the floor with me on every game. Git.

Best. Bizarre Bonus Items. Ever.

We went through the whole VIC-20, C64 thing, and eventually moved on to the Amiga. He still beat me, but one day I bought a game called Bubble Bobble on a whim. Seemed simple enough on the surface – cutesy platform fare with that all-important ‘What’s the next level look like?’ hook.

Then our Sean came home from school and said: “What’s that? It looks good”. This was his hidden way of issuing a challenge. Here we go again... It was gonna be the usual way – I have a go, he beats me, my blood pressure rises as I do my utmost to get revenge, but he only sweeps me aside again and again... I think I said it previously, but – just one more time… Git.

Then, one day the world changed. I can’t exactly remember how it happened, but we suddenly realised that we could play Bubble Bobble together – co-operatively, not competitively. A harmony of sorts.

It was amazing. By co-operating, we found we had more chance of finishing the game. All we had to do was stay alive and reap the bonuses by warping through the levels. Hah! No longer was I cannon fodder for my youthful gamesmeister brother – he was spending all his energy keeping MY character alive.

Now THAT’S a bubble.

Night after night, we played for months. We got to level 99 on no less than four occasions, but never managed to progress to the elusive level 100 (did it even exist?). Then, one night we did it – playing together – and we just looked at each other and grinned like soppy, foolish idiots.

Sean is married now, and lives a long way away. We don’t see him very often, but he came up at Christmas with his wife and two kids. Over the course of a lovely weekend, I fired up an Amiga emulator and loaded Bubble Bobble. We had a game – short by previous standards – and we were both pretty poor, to be honest. When we had finished, I looked at him, and I swear I saw a bit of a tear in his eye. We just smiled. ‘cos we knew.

ZOOT, March 2004.

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