How to play Bubble Shooter
A cluster of coloured bubbles hangs from the ceiling in a honeycomb grid, and a shooter sits at the bottom of the screen holding one bubble with the next one waiting beside it. You aim upwards, fire, and the bubble sticks wherever it lands. Land it so that three or more of the same colour end up touching and the whole group pops and drops away.
Popping a group often cuts other bubbles off from the ceiling. Anything left hanging with no path back up falls too, which is where the big scores come from - a single well-placed shot can bring down half a board. You clear the level by emptying the grid completely. You lose if any bubble is pushed down past the line drawn just above the shooter.
Controls
- Touchscreen: drag a finger to swing the aim, then lift it to fire. Aiming and firing are the same gesture, so a child can line a shot up slowly and only commit when they let go.
- Mouse: hold the left button and move to aim, then release to shoot.
- Keyboard: the left and right arrows nudge the aim a small step at a time, and Space, Enter or the up arrow fires when the board has focus. Q swaps and Escape pauses. Normal page buttons keep their own keyboard behaviour.
- On-screen buttons: use Aim left, Aim right and Shoot instead of dragging. Swap exchanges the loaded and waiting bubbles; Pause holds the round, including a bubble already in flight.
A dotted guide line runs from the shooter and bounces off the side walls to help line up bank shots. The next bubble is shown beside the shooter so you can plan whether to use it or swap.
Chains, combos and the fireball
Each popped bubble is worth a point and each knocked-down bubble is worth two, so aiming at the bubbles holding a whole section up scores far better than picking off matches at the edge. Clearing the board adds a 50 point bonus.
Landing popping shots back to back builds a combo counter, shown above the board once it reaches two, and it resets the moment a shot lands without popping anything. Pop a group of five or more and the next shot becomes a fireball. It clears nearby bubbles on impact regardless of colour: each cleared bubble earns two points, and each bubble detached from the ceiling earns three points.
Stickers
Reaching a score of 3, 20, 50, 100 and 250 in a single game unlocks First Pop, Pop Apprentice, Pop Pro, Pop Star and Bubble Legend in the site-wide sticker book. Because the board bonus and knocked-down bubbles both count towards the score, one very good shot can carry a child past two thresholds at once.
Choose Gentle, Classic or Challenge
Pick a board on the game menu. Your existing working-level setting supplies the initial choice; changing this game’s board does not change your site-wide settings.
- Gentle: three colours, four starting rows and no ceiling drops. This uses the existing KS1 rules.
- Classic: four colours and five starting rows. The ceiling drops after twelve shots in a row without a pop, using the existing Lower KS2 rules.
- Challenge: five colours and six starting rows. The ceiling drops after eight shots in a row without a pop, using the existing Upper KS2 rules.
Pause now, continue your round later
Each board profile keeps its own round on this device. The game saves when you start, shoot, swap, finish a shot or pause. Returning to the page shows Continue round; nothing starts moving until you choose it. A completed round can be reopened with View last result without earning the clear bonus again.
Pause holds the board and any bubble in flight. Switching away from the tab pauses play too. Start a new round asks before replacing unfinished progress in that profile. Other profiles stay saved.
These saves belong to this browser, not an account. Clearing browser storage removes them. If saving is blocked or storage fills up, an on-screen message explains that progress can be lost when you leave the page.
Tips for bigger pops
- Shoot at the top of a group, not the bottom. Removing the bubbles nearest the ceiling is what makes everything below fall.
- Use the walls. The guide line shows the full bounce, so a bank shot can reach a pocket that is impossible to hit straight on.
- Save the fireball for the densest part of the board rather than firing it at the first thing you see.
- Swap rather than waste a shot. A shot that pops nothing breaks your combo and, above KS1, counts towards the next ceiling drop.
Controls and matching cues
Play uses aiming, colour matching and planning. You can drag and release, use the labelled buttons, or use the keyboard. There is no timer between shots. You do not need sound to play.
Each colour also carries a dot pattern, with one to five dots across the available profiles. Reduced-motion preferences reduce the pop bursts, and audio follows the site-wide sound setting. These are available controls and cues; individual access needs vary.
Questions parents and tutors ask
Is this bubble shooter free?
Yes. It is free to play in your browser, with no signup, no download and no in-game purchases.
How do you win a game of Bubble Shooter?
You win by clearing every bubble off the board, which adds a 50 point bonus. You lose if any bubble reaches the marked line just above the shooter.
Do the bubble colours have different patterns?
Each bubble colour has a different dot pattern. The three board profiles use three, four or five colours, with one to five dots as an additional matching cue.
Can the game be made easier?
Choose Gentle on the game menu: three colours, four starting rows and no ceiling drops. Classic and Challenge add more colours and lower the ceiling after a set number of shots without a pop.
Bubble Shooter was built by a UK SEND tutor with QTS. It runs in any modern browser on a tablet, laptop or classroom whiteboard, which makes it easy to use in 1:1 tutoring and screen-share therapy sessions.