Superlative – Tiny Bubbles Review

I’ve purchased, maybe 100 games in the iTunes Store over the past 10 years. I’ve downloaded even more for free. I play games on my phone, both casually, and obsessively at times. Bottom line: this is Top 3 for me. Puzzle/Zen Arcade games-wise, this is #1. I hesitate to compare this to other all-time favorites outside its genre like Star Realms, Age of Rivals, Steredenn, Onirim, or many of the numerous RPG ports I frequent, because it’s its own style. That said, there are puzzle games that this reminds me of, like Kami, Blek, or even Two Dots. This surpasses those in style and gameplay. The mix of puzzle and arcade-style games hits a high point with this game that you can download on your phone. And it’s under $5. I just now beat my final level, and although I feel that there are things that could be better, I can’t help but feel that I truly enjoyed myself every moment that I played. I haven’t gotten all the achievements, but I actually feel like I might redo all the levels, which is crazy for me to do, as my process is: I download a game, I beat it once, I delete it. Idk. You may not care about my dumb process, but that’s a big deal to me. Time-wise, I probably spent about 6 hours playing on my first play-through. That’s just a ballpark estimate; could be a few hours more. Aesthetically, it’s as gorgeous as an iPhone game should be. Smooth as The Fonz and the difficulty spike is welcome for someone who wants to be casually obsessive about it. My issues. There’s a mode called infinity mode that lets you basically play about 15 turns in a separate, unending play area, in order to earn tickets. Earn enough tickets and you can unlock hints on how to beat puzzles, or buy power-ups to defeat an arcade level. Your 20 turns regenerate completely in 3 hours. There are also achievements to unlock that are attainable only in infinity mode. Other than that, infinity mode is pointless, a little boring, and takes away from the flow of the bulk of the game (it’s not “zen-mode,” so don’t even try to sell me that [speaking of which, why the heck isn’t there zen-mode?!]) On top of all that, I remember being stuck on a puzzle level, and 5 tickets would show you just the first of literally over 15 moves that would help you successfully beat the level. I’ll tell you right now: you’re not going to play infinity mode long enough to get enough hints for it to actually be helpful. But I digress. Infinity mode is basically avoidable, and not a necessary part of the gaming experience that is Tiny Bubbles. They don’t get psycho about making the game extraordinarily difficult for the obsessive 100% gamers out there, but the achievements I’m missing after the first play-through seem like they could take at least a few more hours to find without internet help. If you’ve ever bought a single phone game in your life, or say to your friends, “I really just like figuring things out,” or even said that you like puzzle games once, you’d bring great shame unto your family if you don’t buy this right now. It should belong in the all-time greats. If you read this far, thanks. Love each other.
Review by DeBellM on Tiny Bubbles.