In 2004, I developed a puzzle game prototype in Adobe Flash (now Adobe Animate) called Muku Muku Islands; it was inspired by the Puyo Puyo video games franchise, and the gameplay was straightforward: the player had the ability to drop colored bubbles - when four or more bubbles of the same color connected to each other, they disappeared. I also introduced the concept of platforms (islands), that would slowly sink under certain conditions.

While I was working on the prototype, I realized it had the potential to become an enjoyable game; I quickly renamed the project to the more fitting Bubble Islands, and restarted from scratch, writing a better code and creating improved graphics. The new prototype was named Pop'n'Pinky Bubble Islands, and it was quite advanced, featuring several playable characters, various game modes, and a rolling demo.

In June 2005, I shared a gameplay video on the Flash Kit Community Forums, a well-known resource site for Flash developers, and the people's reaction was very enthusiastic.

For some reason, in January 2006, I restarted the project from scratch... again. I don't know, maybe I'm a perfectionist? (LOL). But this time, it was for good: a new game engine, a new logo, new characters (you can see their evolution here), enhanced game modes, a real soundtrack and sound effects, and even a few voices! The game really started to look good and play well; all aspects of the game were vastly improved.

The real Bubble Islands was born!

For this version, I got some help from other amazing artists: Steven 'surasshu' Velema and Frédéric Robinson did an amazing job with the soundtrack (see below). Claude 'yota' Tachnakian provided the voice you can hear at the title screen, while Rinaldo 'fougere' Wirz assisted with a few backgrounds. And last but not least: Nilsen 'hasufel' Filc helped with the puzzles, and also... the servers running Bubble Islands (more on that incredible story below).

In December 2006, Bubble Islands was named a finalist for "Best Web Browser Game" at the Independent Games Festival (more about that below) thanks to a nearly finished version I submitted (it was ready to roll, just a couple of minor details left to perfect).

In January 2007, I finally took the leap and shared the game with the public on the Flash Kit Community Forums. Even though it wasn't quite 100% done, it took off across the web faster than a viral meme, and the feedback was so positive, I started wondering if I was onto a hit or just really, really lucky.

Sometime in February, the game found his way to Minijuegos, a huge online gaming portal with about 6 million unique visits per month... and something terrible happened: although I had unlimited monthly bandwidth, my web hosting provider contacted me right away, and informed me that their hosting for 42,000 sites was becoming highly unstable due to the overwhelming number of people attempting to play Bubble Islands. It was like a real tsunami!

The solution was to put the game offline, modify the URL... or get a dedicated server only for the game. This is when Nilsen 'hasufel' Filc offered his help: he could use his own servers to host the game. He said that there was around 340 connections per second... per server (out of three) O_O That was unbelievable. But thanks to his invaluable help, Bubble Islands was running again!

Thanks to Bubble Islands, I had the opportunity to collaborate with amazing people, outstanding companies, enhance the quality of my portfolio, and acquire a wealth of new knowledge! It was a significant Level Up for me. But the story isn't over yet, I have much more to share and reveal about Bubble Islands! If you want to learn more, please continue browsing the page or select your preferred section below.

To make Bubble Islands more appealing, I designed and animated 10 cute and colorful characters, mainly inspired by Japanese (pop) culture. They were all unique, and, most importantly, they all had several expressions related to their temperament (motivated, funny, happy, sad,...) so that players could relate to them. Initially, most of the characters had a backstory, but I never had the time to add that part to the game. So, let's discuss about that here!

The game's central narrative revolved around this:

One day, a treasure was discovered at the foot of a gigantic rainbow: it was the legendary Olympus Chest. It was brought to King Yuko, the friendly sovereign of a peaceful country, who decided to organize a tournament called Bubble Islands. The winner would receive the Isaac Key, the only artifact capable of opening the Olympus Chest. But... what's inside? Nobody knows.

For each character, I designed a suitable background environment. For exemple, a bamboo forest for Yotta (the samurai octopus), a Babylonesque tower for Maggo (the magician), or an ancient temple above the clouds for Pinky. Each background was unique, and it was possible to make it loop horizontally which was useful for the Puzzle Mode, where the background scrolls endlessly until all the puzzles are solved.

Similar to the characters, I wanted the backgrounds to be colorful and provide some backstory. Each floor was animated (water, lava, ice, light etc.) and interactive (splashing when a bubble fell into water, for example), but the backgrounds themselves remained static - although I really wanted to animate some of them, such as the crowd reacting in King Yuko's level.

Pop'n'Pinky Bubble Islands was an advanced prototype closely resembling the final version of Bubble Islands. Developed in 2005, it boasted nearly identical gameplay mechanics and introduced a host of familiar characters, including Pinky, Astero, Yotta, and Maggo. This iteration marked a significant advancement from the earlier Muku Muku Islands prototype (see below).

Look below to see how the characters in the current prototype compare to the final ones in Bubble Islands. The final characters look much better - their appearance, their expressions, and how charming they are. This change shows how I got better at drawing and designing characters as I worked on the game.