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FAERIELAND - You enter a large classroom with many other pets seated at their
desks. You check the board, which reads, Faerie Bubbles for Beginners.
Satisfied that you're in the right place, you sit down at a desk near the door.
At the front of the room, a tall Faerie Blumaroo is standing with her back to
class for now. Just as you sit down, she turns round and waves her arms. The
class falls silent.
"Hi... I'm Miss Yahgelo, but please call me Chacha. I'm a Faerie Blumaroo...
but you probably can see that from my lovely Faerie wings." She gives a nervous
laugh; it's quite obvious she isn't used to this kind of thing. She coughs a
little and looks around, then continues, "Well, Fyora, the Faerie queen, has
asked me to tech some lessons about Faerie Bubbles, as I spend most of my time
playing it. It's just such a great game. So, um, shall we get started?"
Chacha flicks her wings out of the way and pulls out a long cane out from behind
her back and points it at the board beside her.
"Lesson One : The Controls..." she turns to the board and writes
neatly on it the various controls for the game.
Once this is done, she turns back and explains what she has just written to
class with a smile.
"The LEFT ARROW (on the arrow pad) turns the shooter LEFT.
The RIGHT ARROW turns shooter RIGHT.
The UP ARROW brings the shooter UPRIGHT again.
The SPACE BAR actually SHOOTS the bubble.
"Got that? Very good... now lets move on."
She turns back to the board, tapping it with the cane it so that it clears.
"Now for the second lesson," she says, with a pleased grin before looking at
her notes.
"Lesson Two," she states looking back up, "The Goal Of The Game."
She looks around to check everyone is listening, "The aim of this game is to
clear as many levels as possible and you do this by clearing screens. You clear
screens by getting rid of all the bubbles. You rid the screen of the bubbles
by connecting 3 or more bubbles of the same type together." She pauses for a
moment to let this information sink in before continuing, "You will get a special
bonus if you clear all levels, though I'm not quite sure what it is. I haven't
managed to get that far yet, but anyone who knows please tell me!" she laughs
and looks back at her notes.
Looking back up again she starts again, "The top of the screen will move down
after a certain number of shots... so don't waste time! The quicker you clear
a level, the more points you will get for your level bonus. If the bottom line
of bubbles crosses over the bottom the game will be over." She stops for a moment
and watches everyone scribbling furiously, walking through the rows, "Now for
lesson three."
"Lesson Three : Combination Moves..."
She taps on a desk of a pet that isn't really paying attention, really starting
to get into the teacher frame of mind, and then continues, "When 3 or more bubbles
have an extra bubble added to their set, they cause a combination move. Some
combination moves are good, and some are bad. But we will learn more about that
in lesson four."
She returns to the front of the class and stands by the board. "Lesson Four
: The Bubbles," she states in a calm and confident, but relaxed, manner.
"There are 8 types of bubbles. 3 that are good for combo moves, 3 that are
bad for combo moves, and 2 special bubbles," she says, with a smile beaming
throughout the class. "Now we will learn about each separate type of bubble."
She taps the top of the board with the cane as two small picture and one larger
pictures fall down from what seems like nowhere.
"Lesson Five," she says, taking a look at her notes. "Lets learn about
Fire Faerie Bubbles first. This is a good combo bubble."
She stands to one side and points her cane at the first picture that had suddenly
appeared before, "This class, is what a Fire Faerie bubble looks like when waiting
to be cleared…"
She then moves her cane onto the second picture, "... and this is what it looks
like whilst inside of the cannon."
"…and finally, when this bubble's combo move is set off, the fire bubbles will
look like this..." she said gesturing toward the final and largest image.
"It will destroy everything but water bubbles. This can be useful in tight
corners."
Chacha taps at the pictures and they magically change to show different bubbles.
"Lesson Six : Water Faerie Bubbles," she says, happy that the
class is paying attention. "This is another good combo bubble." She points again
at the now changed picture, "This is an in play water Faerie bubble..."
She then slides her cane smoothly to the next picture. "... and this is a photo
of it inside the cannon..."
"This here is an activated water bubble combo," she says, pointing to the final
one.
"When a water bubble combination (or combo for short) is activated, it will
cause all water bubbles that are on the screen at that moment to vanish. This
can be very useful when there are a lot of other bubbles dangling on just a
few of them."
She then taps once again and the pictures change as they did before. This time,
they were displaying yellow bubbles. "And lesson seven will be about
the final good combination bubble: Light Faerie Bubbles."
She stands silently for a while, waiting for the dawdlers to finish scrawling
the previous notes from the last couple of lessons. As the scratching of pens
ceased, she points her cane at the board again. "This is a Light Faerie bubble
whilst it is in play…"
"... and whilst in the cannon..." she smiles contentedly at the bobbing heads
watching her, and then scribbling down what she had to say.
"… And this is this bubble's activated combination," she explained, as she
hops across to the other side as to add a little movement to the class.
"This bubble's activated combination will change all the surrounding bubbles
to the same colour as each other. The colour they change to is random.”
The pictures are tapped. This time they change to a green colour. "Now class,
this lesson is the start of the bad Faerie bubbles. Lesson Eight : Earth
Faerie Bubbles.
"This is it whilst it is in play. As it's not in a combination, at this point
it is totally harmless," she giggles at the thought of a maniac Earth Faerie
bubble.
"… And again, whilst in the cannon the bubble is totally harmless and inactive,
as it can be seen here," she slid her cane along to the second picture.
"… And this is when you will know your trouble is starting and the combination
move has been activated."
"Earth Faerie bubbles are a pain, as they add an extra layer of random bubbles
and push all the others down a level. This is nasty when you are just clearing
the last few and the top is quite low. Avoid this combination if possible. Although,
it doesn't always mean disaster if done quite early on."
She taps the pictures with her cane and they change again. “Okay, class,” she
says looking around at the room, “looks like Lesson Nine will be
Dark Faerie Bubbles.”
She leans against the board and points at the first picture, “This is the in-play
Dark Faerie bubble…”
Still leaning against the board, she points to the second picture, “… and here
it is in the cannon…”
“This is when the combination is activated. This combination isn’t too bad
in small numbers and quite early on. It will change all the bubbles of the combination
into random colours. Not too bad if in small numbers but disastrous in large
numbers.”
She lightly raps at the pictures and they change colour again. She shudders
slightly and then announces the next topic. “Lesson Ten : Air Faerie
Bubbles.”
“This is the harmless in play air Faerie bubble. Looks so pretty now, it’s
a shame it’s actually quite nasty once you get it going.” She points at the
first picture.
“The in the cannon air Faerie bubble, also quite harmless, unless you are going
to shoot it at three or more, of course…” She pauses for a moment to check everyone
is still following.
“… And this is the combination. This combination is quite nasty especially
in the later part of levels. It fills up each row the combination bubbles are
on with random bubbles.”
A shudder runs around the class at her last words. “Anyway class, moving swiftly
on, let’s cover the special bubbles.”
She taps the pictures again, yet this time instead of changing, they seemed
to sprout wings, happily fluttering out of the window. The class watches in
amazement until Chacha raps on a desk and calls back their attention. “Now class,
its Lesson Eleven : Special Bubbles.
She taps at the board again, causing two different pictures appear. “There
are two types of special bubble. The Rainbow Bubble and the Nova
Bubble.”
She walks to the back of the class before speaking again, “The rainbow bubble
will turn into the first bubble it touches, which can be very useful when the
bubble you need isn’t handy.”
Chacha looks around for a minute, then bounces back down to the front on her
tail. She points at the first picture, “This is the rainbow bubble before it
hits anything.”
She points her cane to the other. “…And this is the nova bubble just before
it hits anything. When a nova bubble hits it destroys all the bubbles around
it.”
She taps the board again and the pictures all disappear. “Now, we shall move
onto Lesson Twelve : Cases When Good Become Bad And Bad Become Good.”
“Mostly the bubble combinations will fit into the pre-described categories,
but on odd occasions their roles can swap. I shall now write on the board for
you to copy a list of these occasions.”
She picks up the piece of chalk lying on her desk and walks over to the board.
As she writes she mutters quietly to herself, “A Fire combo can change
to a bad combination when it will burn away a bubble meaning you have to shoot
extras. Like in this picture.” She taps the board lightly and a picture appears.
Bad Configuration
She then turns to the class and explains the solution to this combo problem,
“to get around this problem, you simply shoot a fire bubble onto the bubble
that would be left over, and then wait for another fire bubble and shoot it
into the gap to set off the fire combo that will burn the other bubbles away.”
She taps the picture and the picture changes to show the solution.
The Solution
She then turns back to board and starts writing and muttering again, “A Light
combo can turn nasty when it changes all the other bubbles around it to a bad
combination, such as Dark Faerie bubbles.” She taps the picture and it changes
again.
Bad Result
She again turns to the class, “In this case class, there is nothing you can
do but hope and pray to Fyora that the dark bubbles will do their trick of turning
into a good combo.” She taps at the board and the picture changes then she turns
to it and starts writing again whilst muttering, “A Dark combo can actually
turn good when it turns most of itself into the type that’s good, like water.
Like on this picture.”
Good Result
She smiles around the class then continues writing, “A Air combo can become
good when it is a whole row as shown on this picture,” she points to the picture
and it changes into two, “it will fill up the row beneath but as it will have
been held by the air bubbles it will fall giving you more points.”
Good Configuration
Result
She taps the picture for the final time so that it disappears and then goes
back to writing and muttering, “Nova bubbles can be bad sometimes as
well, as they can destroy combos that could be useful. This is fortunately very
rare so I have not been able to photograph it.”
She smiles happily, “Now class, we have come to the final lesson, Lesson
Thirteen : General Hints And Tips.”
She looks around to make sure everyone has finished copying then magically
wipes the board clean. “Listen up class, this is the most important part, where
we bring all the knowledge together. I want you to write down what is on the
board,” she taps it once with her cane a short list appears, “then you may go.
Thank you for your time and I hope I have taught you a little more about the
wonderful game that is Faerie Bubbles.”
You look up at the board and quickly copy down the final lesson, which reads…
1. Use your knowledge of combinations to your advantage.
2. Use combo moves when possible but avoid destroying other combos if you can.
3. Use the least amount of shots as possible don’t shoot extra bubbles unless
you have to.
4. As there is no time limit, plan ahead!
5. And finally…have fun!
Authors Note: Thank you for reading. Thanks to the people who helped make this
possible, thanks again. Comments are welcome.
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