Bubble Duel

How to play Bubble Duel

1. A field each. Both players get a field of coloured bubbles hanging from a ceiling, with a launcher at the bottom. Both fields start exactly the same.
2. Aim and shoot. Your bubble flies in a straight line, bounces off the side walls and sticks where it touches another bubble or the ceiling.
3. Pop three. When your bubble joins a group of three or more of its own colour, the whole group pops.
4. Drop the rest. Every bubble must hang from the ceiling, directly or through other bubbles. Bubbles left hanging from nothing after a pop fall off the field.
5. Send bubbles across. Each bubble you pop after the first three, and each bubble that falls, sends one bubble into your rival's field.
6. New rows. A new row of bubbles comes down from both ceilings at the same moment and pushes everything else down a row. The first comes after 15 seconds, and each one after that comes a little sooner than the last.
7. Don't cross the line. If any of your bubbles ends up over the dashed line near your launcher, you lose the round. It doesn't matter how it got there: your own shot, a new row or bubbles your rival sent. A shot that lands over the line is fine if it pops.
8. Win the match: the first to win 2 rounds wins. Choose Best of 5 before you start for a longer match, first to 3.

Rounds usually last between one and four minutes. Because the new rows keep coming faster, no round goes on for ever.

Sending bubbles

Popping exactly three bubbles keeps your field tidy but sends nothing. Bigger pops and falls are what hurt your rival:

Bubbles sent to you don't arrive straight away. They wait as small bubbles under your line, each in the column where it will rise. When your next shot lands, they rise into your field: each one goes straight up its column and sticks under whatever is there. Up to eight rise after each of your shots; any more wait for the shot after.

You can stop them. If that shot sends bubbles of its own, they first cancel out the bubbles waiting for you, one for one, and only what's left goes across to your rival.

Bubbles that rise into your field never pop anything when they arrive, but you can pop them like any others.

Your launcher

The bubble in your launcher and the next one, beside it, are both on show, and your rival can see yours just as you can see theirs. If the next bubble suits you better, swap them: tap your launcher or your next bubble, or press your swap key.

Your launcher only loads colours that are in your field at the time, so you're rarely handed a colour with nothing to match. Both players' bubbles come from the same random sequence, so while your fields still hold the same colours, you both get the same bubbles in the same order. The new rows are the same for both players too, which keeps every round fair.

There are five colours, and each has its own mark inside: a heart, a star, a triangle, a diamond and a cross. That way you can tell them apart even if some colours look alike to you.

Controls

• On a phone or tablet: drag in your own field to aim, and let go to shoot. The dotted line shows your bubble's path as far as its first bounce. Let go below your launcher if you change your mind. Tap your launcher or your next bubble to swap them.
• On a keyboard: Orange turns with A and D, shoots with W and swaps with S. Purple turns with ← and →, shoots with ↑ or Enter and swaps with ↓. Hold a key to turn: slowly at first for fine aiming, then faster.
• Playing alone: either set of keys works, and Space shoots too. With a mouse, just move it to aim and click to shoot.

On a phone held upright, Orange plays the bottom field and Purple the top one, turned round to face them, so lay the phone flat between you. On a wider screen the two fields stand side by side, Orange on the left. A bar above each ceiling fills up as the next row gets closer and flashes just before it comes, and your line flashes when your bubbles get near it. The rounds each player has won show as dots beside the bar.

Computer levels

The computer plays by the same rules and sees what you see: both fields and the bubbles in both launchers. It tries every angle, bank shots included, by following each shot's real path, then picks the one it likes best. It takes a moment to choose, turns its launcher like a person and has a little wobble in its aim, so even Expert takes more than half a second over every shot.

Tips to win

• Cut them loose. A pop near the top of a hanging group drops everything below it, and every falling bubble goes to your rival. One good drop beats many small pops.
• Use the walls. A bank shot off the side wall can reach a gap you can't hit directly. The aim line shows the first bounce.
• Swap when it helps. Check your next bubble before every shot. Swapping costs nothing.
• Watch what's waiting. When bubbles are queued under your line, make your next shot a big one to cancel them.
• Stay shallow. Long chains of bubbles hanging down are the first to reach the line when a new row pushes everything down.

About Bubble Duel

Bubble shooters, where you fire coloured bubbles to make groups of three, go back to an arcade game from the mid-1990s and are still popular on the web and on phones. Bubble Duel is our own take for two players: the fields sit side by side or face to face, and every pop you make can push trouble into your rival's field.

Questions

Updated 11 November 2026