‘Electro Bobble’ Impressions: Living In a 2D Thunder Cloud

No, I’m not kidding with that title: you play as a bobble of electricity who lives in a thunder cloud, in Electro Bobble. If that’s the strangest video game premise you’ve ever heard, then something tells me you need to play more indie games. I’d recommend fixing that once you’ve tried the demo of this one, but first let’s see what it’s all about.

After taking the demo for a brief spin, I was left with a somewhat mixed impression. On one side, it was an interesting – if a bit basic – and colorful experience, but jumping felt incredibly floaty and imprecise, which made it more difficult than it should have been (I hope). It gets even worse, because along with dodging enemy fire you also have to stay on the screen as it scrolls upwards constantly! You do have the option of taking the enemies out instead of simply playing dodgeball with their shots though, by aiming at the poor fools and pulling the trigger (or left mouse button, in this case). While there were times when enemies dropped power-ups, quite frankly I always wondering whether or not they actually did something as I noticed no changes. It’s a shame about the physics, because if they’re ‘working as intended’ then that’s quite odd. I mean, 2D platformers do play much better with tight and precise controls after all.

But aside from that, there was in fact fun to be had. I’d recommend downloading the demo from the developer’s website, where you can also spend €5.99 on the full version, should you so desire.

Update: 1.0.1 has been released (demo and full version), with tighter controls, power-ups that have a noticeable impact and other good things.