Buddy Bubble (C64)
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Buddy Bubble is a platformer developed in 1986 and published in 1987.
In every level (zone), you start with 22 lives, depicted as energy bar. Coins (called such by a YouTuber) get you one point and five lives back. Touching "the white semicircles" closes one group of "doors" and opens the other one. A purple checkpoint gets you nine points and increases the digit in the top right pyramid (apparently also zone). The last checkpoint gets you to the next level. After level 3, it's level 1.
Buddy Bubble is the only known work of programmer Frank Staerkert and musician Thomas Martin, whereas graphic artist Andreas Kemnitz programmed five more C64 games.
Most people compare Buddy Bubble to Monty Mole (C64) and are frustrated by the controls, but highlight the blues music and the eight death animations.
Contents
Screenshots
Music
When the main menu appears, a blues song starts on all three channels of the SID chip. When the doors are put in place, a bell-like sound effect plays, pausing the music for half a second.
The music was arranged using Background Music Editor, itself previously used on two games by Kemnitz. The three sound effects are uncredited. On the original, you first hear a scratching 4-bit sawtooth wave; that was added by Mc.Cracken (De-)Compressor V1.3 which was used to speed up loading. A two-octave-higher bell is hidden in RAM, but unused.
As of 1987-07-27, Martina Strack of Aktueller Software Markt magazine rated sound 8 out of 12, noting that solely the sound is good standard for a 10 DM game.
Recording
The music was recorded from the game:
- in VICE 3.10 with C64 PAL and a bias of -1170, where it arguably sounds best.
Recordings for 8580 and other biases can be made if found common and different enough. The song was played twice, 10 seconds longer, and faded out.
| # | Title | Composer | Length | Listen | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 101 | Theme | Thomas Martin | 3:06 | Download |
Credits
- Ripper: High Voltage SID Collection
- Recorder: Professor Chaos
- Game Credits:
- Music By: Thomas Martin
- Not Credited Programmer: Gary Davis
- Not Credited Foley Artist: Unknown
(Sources: mid-bottom, code comparison.)
Game Rip
Audio Devices
Music and sound play on the computer's built-in SID chip. The melody sounds different on every machine because it uses SID's unstable low-pass filter.
An official NTSC release is not known.
Releases
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Links
- mobygames.com/game/69440/buddy-bubble/ - MobyGames.
- gamefaqs.gamespot.com/c64/215646-buddy-bubble - GameFAQs.
