On this page
How to play Bubble Shooter
You fire one bubble at a time from the bottom of the board.
Controls
| Mouse | Touch | Keyboard | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aim | Move the pointer over the board | Press and drag | Left and Right arrows, 1 degree each. Hold Shift for 0.25 degree. |
| Shoot | Click | Lift your finger | Space or Enter |
| Swap the ready and next bubbles | Right-click the board, or click the small next bubble | Tap the small next bubble | S or Up arrow |
| Cancel a shot | – | Lift your finger in the strip just above the launcher | – |
For the keyboard, press Tab to reach the board first. You can aim from 12 to 168 degrees above the horizontal. A bubble flies for up to a second, and a shot or swap in that time is not taken.
Rules and scoring
- Match: a shot that joins three or more touching bubbles of one color pops them. Only color counts.
- Drop: any bubble no longer linked to the top row falls.
- New rows: every few shots, a new row pushes in from the top. The counter reads “New row in N”. A swap does not use a shot.
- Game over: a bubble in the 14th row ends the run, checked after your shot and after each new row. The danger line turns amber once a bubble reaches the 11th row.
Popping n bubbles scores 10n + 10(n − 3). Dropping k bubbles scores 20k + 5k(k − 1). Clearing the board adds 1,000.
| Bubbles | Popped together | Dropped together |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | 30 | 90 |
| 5 | 70 | 200 |
| 10 | 170 | 650 |
Dropping 5 bubbles (200 points) beats popping 10 (170).
Stages
Each stage starts with a fresh board of up to six rows. It ends when you clear the board, or when the stage’s quota of new rows has come in and you are still alive. Bubbles left on the board then leave without scoring. Each cell reads Relaxed / Classic / Hard.
| Stage | New rows to survive | Shots per new row | Colors |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 / 2 / 1 | 10 / 8 / 7 | 4 / 5 / 6 |
| 2 | 1 / 2 / 1 | 9 / 7 / 6 | 4 / 5 / 6 |
| 3 | 3 / 3 / 3 | 8 / 6 / 5 | 4 / 5 / 6 |
| 4 | 4 / 4 / 4 | 6 / 4 / 4 | 5 / 6 / 6 |
| 5 | 5 / 5 / 5 | 5 / 3 / 3 | 5 / 6 / 6 |
| 6 | 6 / 6 / 6 | 4 / 2 / 2 | 5 / 6 / 6 |
| 7 | 7 / 7 / 7 | 3 / 2 / 2 | 5 / 6 / 6 |
From Stage 8, every level sends a row every 2 shots. The quota rises by one per stage, up to 12.
Bomb and Line bubbles
Stage 2 boards hold at least one Bomb, and Stage 3 boards at least one Line, within reach of a shot.
- Bomb (six short dashes around the rim): clears itself and up to six touching bubbles, whatever their color.
- Line (two short bars on each side): clears every bubble in its row.
A special goes off only inside a match of three or more, or when another special clears it. Falling does not set it off. What it clears scores as popped. When your aimed shot would set one off, solid rings mark the bubbles that would pop and dotted rings mark those that would fall.
Tips for higher scores
- Aim with the ring. The dotted line shows the full path, bounces included. A dashed ring shows where the bubble will stop.
- Use the walls. A bank shot reaches pockets a straight one cannot. In the figure below, the shot bounces once off the right wall. We checked every quarter degree from 12 to 168, and no straight shot lands in that spot.
- Cut the support. Drops pay more than pops, as the figure below shows. Look for the bubble that holds a cluster to the ceiling.
- Check both bubbles. Look at the ready and next bubbles before every shot, and swap when the second one fits better.
- Watch the counter. At “New row in 1”, a new row follows your next shot. Plan around it.
- You need not clear the board. A board gives you at most rows × shots-per-row shots: 16 on Classic Stage 1 (2 × 8). Spend them on pops and drops.
One fact from the code: on Classic, board bubbles copy a neighbor’s color with 50%, 40% and 35% odds in Stages 1 to 3, then 15% from Stage 4. Later boards have fewer ready-made groups.
figure:mid:63, nine shots at angles drawn from that seed). The aim path and rings are added for this figure.Our numbers
These figures come from our own test suite, run on October 27, 2026 unless another date is given. The method is on How we test.
Three bots played 1,000 games each on every level, 9,000 in all. A game stopped when a bubble reached the 14th row, or at a 2,000-shot cap. They are bots, not people.
- Random picks a random angle from 12 to 168 degrees.
- Best angle tries every whole degree with the ready and next bubbles and takes the best pop-and-drop result.
- Average does the same, then adds a random error of up to 1 degree.
| Level | Random | Average | Best angle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Relaxed | 52 shots, Stage 4 | 187 shots, Stage 11 | 569 shots, Stage 31 |
| Classic | 48 shots, Stage 3 | 121 shots, Stage 8 | 181 shots, Stage 12 |
| Hard | 42 shots, Stage 4 | 101 shots, Stage 8 | 169 shots, Stage 12 |
Each cell is the median game: shots taken, and stage reached. On Relaxed, 52 of the 1,000 best-angle games hit the cap. A second set of 2,700 games with new seeds gave Average medians of 191, 121 and 112 shots (Relaxed, Classic, Hard).
In a time model of 3 seconds per shot plus 800 ms for each stage change (the longest a stage change takes), the median Average game lasts about 9½ minutes on Relaxed (568.2 seconds), 6 on Classic (368.6) and 5 on Hard (308.6). That is a model, not a measurement of people.
- Specials: in 3,000 Average games, a Bomb showed up within 60 shots and 180 seconds of model time in 1,000 of 1,000 games on each level, and so did a Line.
- Colors: in 30,000 test games, a color on the board waited at most 8 deals (Relaxed) or 10 (Classic and Hard) to be dealt.
- Aim: in 10,000 test aims (200 boards, 50 angles each), the drawn path ended where the real shot landed 10,000 times. That includes 2,491 paths with two or more wall bounces.
The daily run and your records
- Level: the Daily is always Classic.
- Same start: everyone who plays on the same calendar date gets the same board and first bubbles. A new one starts at midnight, your time.
- One counted run: the first finished Daily of the day is recorded. Playing it again is practice, and your stats do not change.
- Daily record: runs played, your streak and your longest streak. The streak counts consecutive days you finished. After a gap, it restarts at 1.
- Free play record: runs played and best score, kept separately for Relaxed, Classic and Hard.
- Saving: the game saves after each shot and resumes if you reload. Records stay in this browser on this device.
What every game’s Daily has in common is on the Daily page.
Frequently asked questions
Does Bubble Shooter have numbered levels?
No. You choose a difficulty, Relaxed, Classic or Hard, and a run moves through stages. Each stage sends new rows faster until a row comes every 2 shots (from Stage 6 on Classic and Hard, Stage 8 on Relaxed). Changing difficulty in the middle of a run asks first, because it starts a new run. The New game button also starts one, and an unfinished run left that way is not recorded at all.
Will the color I need show up?
The ready and next bubbles only come in colors still on the board. In 30,000 test games on October 27, 2026, the game dealt a missing color 0 times in 1,451,456 deals.
Is my run saved if I close the tab?
Yes. The game saves after each shot on this device and picks the run up when you come back (a Daily run, on the same date). In our October 29, 2026 checks, a reload resumed the run, and reloading right after a run ended (8 of 8 tries) kept the result and counted the run once.
Why does my Daily board differ from a friend’s after a few shots?
The starting board and the first bubbles are the same for everyone. After that, new rows and new bubbles are drawn from the colors still on your own board, so your boards drift apart.
Last updated: November 2, 2026.