Bubble Date Mania (discontinued)

I met this redheaded college girl with a huge rack the other day. She needed some help studying for her anatomy lesson, since she’d never seen a dick before. She came over, and we spent the evening popping bubbles, and then I nailed her without a condom. It was easily one of the best dates ever, though I may well have caught a serious case of Bubble Date Mania.

Bubble Date Mania is a bubble-shooting game combined with elements of a hentai dating sim. It’s free to play on the web over at Nutaku, and has the kind of polished artwork and gameplay you expect from games released on the platform. I actually spent way more time playing this than I expected to today, and I’m still not sure whether it was the bubble popping or naked anime girls that kept me hooked. Probably a little bit of both.

A Sexy First Day on Campus

The game opens with that scenario I opened with. This clueless hot chick wants me to help her study, I agree, and the next thing you know, we’re on a date. “Destroy all bubbles to complete this date,” the game tells me. It really speaks to an audience of awkward virgin neckbeards that you have to “complete” the date like it’s some kind of terrifying challenge and not a good time with a pretty girl. Instead of suffering the horror of trying to chat over dinner, I get to just pop some bubbles instead. Phew! Crisis averted!

The basic gameplay is the same as any other bubble-shooting game, from early ones like Puzzle Bobble to modern soccer mom time-wasters like Angry Birds POP and Bubble Witch 2 Saga. You aim your ball at some other balls, shoot, and cause the whole pile to explode when you get at least 3 like-colored balls together.

You’ve got a dotted line that moves with your ball-blaster to help you line up your shot, and you always have a choice of two different colored balls you can fire off. These are just standard trappings of the genre. The only thing immediately separating Bubble Date Mania from most shooters is the redhead, Mia. She’s standing off to the side, groaning with pleasure every time I pop some bubbles. What can I say? The girl’s easily amused.

The first level is easy as fuck, as they’re just trying to teach you how it works. All the bubbles you need to pop are arranged in tight clusters, so there’s not much strategy; aim a ball at a cluster of the same color, and they all come crashing down. A few minutes after starting the game, you’ll be collecting your first rewards.

XP, Cash, and Naked Hentai Pics

After you beat the first level, a screen pops up saying you’ve won some XP and a little stack of cash. Better still, you also get to see the girl naked! It’s a really nice, uncensored hentai pic where she’s getting drilled by a big cock, with plenty of drippy fluids all over the place. It’s a shame it’s not animated, but you can definitely whack off to it.

On the next screen, you’ll see all of Mia’s levels laid out for you. The ones you finish will have hearts representing how well you did. What I really like is that the levels with hentai rewards are clearly marked with a little Polaroid icon. Some games make you just keep grinding along, hoping another nude is coming soon. Bubble Date Mania doesn’t jerk you around like that while you’re trying to jerk yourself off.

The second level introduces a new wrinkle: power-ups. They give you four different special balls to help you on your quest. One’s a wildcard that will match any color; other ones blow up whole lines or hexagons of bubbles. You only get 2 of each, so I figured I’d hold on to mine. I didn’t end up using any of them during my playtest. They’re not quite a renewable resource, which I’ll get to shortly.

You’ll also see a new REROLL button right beside your ball-blaster. This will let you get a new color, in case you got a shitty one that’s not going to help your game. The first reroll is free, but any subsequent roll is going to cost you some diamonds. I wasn’t about to part with any, and the level is easy enough anyway. Keep an eye on the counter. If you run out of turns, your date is a fucking failure, and you go home with blue balls.

Alternately, if you’re about to lose, Bubble Date Mania will let you continue the game if you’d like to spend some diamonds. It costs 6 to keep going after you’ve run out of time, and the girl is tired of your shit. I only had 10 diamonds during the course of the game, and I never earned any more. I wasn’t about to blow them like that.

Gacha! That’s How They Get Ya!

You win more XP and more money after the second bubble-popping date. Before the third level, you get dropped into the store where you can buy more of those power-up balls. They’ve even got a dozen ones they haven’t let you try yet.

The problem is, all the ball bundles cost 30 diamonds. As I said, I only ever had 10. Beating a level earns you XP and money, but no diamonds. What the fuck?

Well, you probably already know what the fuck, at least if you’ve ever tried “free to play” games. Whether you’re on your PS4, Nutaku, or something you found in the Apple app store, “free to play” always means “free to play, but you’ll get further faster if you give us some money.”

Nutaku games usually have a gacha system of in-app purchases. Bubble Date Mania has a few different kinds of currency and treasures, but only certain ones are useful for buying things. The most useful ones are often very difficult or outright impossible to get without shelling out some cash.

Bubble Date Mania doesn’t beat you over the head too hard with demands to buy some in-game money. They’re a bit more subtle about it. There’s a Gacha machine accessible from the menu where they tell you there’s some good shit. You take a look, and it turns out it’s a random loot machine that works on tokens. I put in my one free token and earned a pile of cash, one of the common (garbage) prizes. If I want to try again, well, time to pony up!

Can You Really Play for Free?

My wallets a little light this week on account of that shipment of bootleg Viagra I just got from China, coronavirus be damned, so I didn’t want to shell out any real money. Nutaku games are typically pretty good about leaving the gacha optional, so I kept going on bubble-popping dates.

I started seeing this sci-fi nerd slut next. Laia has Princess Leia hair, an ewok hood, a Chewbacca shirt, a lightsaber, and no pants. You’ve got a boner already, don’t you? Well, don’t let it distract you from the new wrinkle introduced in her stage: bubbles that give you more turns or take them away.

I beat the first of her levels, but the second got me. I didn’t want to use my meager power-ups, so I replayed it a couple of times. The third time I tried again, some blonde with nice cleavage popped up on the screen saying I didn’t have enough energy. To keep going, I’d have to buy energy drinks in the store with diamonds I didn’t have.

Fuck! That’s a genuinely game-breaking way to implement the gacha system. It fucking sucks, because the gameplay is addictive. This is a damn fine, polished example of the bubble-popping genre, exposed titties or not. The fact that I can’t play anymore without a cash infusion is a serious bummer. This is the first Nutaku game I’ve played where the in-app purchases really ruined the fun.

It’s hard for me to recommend Bubble Date Mania. The bubble popping mechanics are done so well and will hook any fan of the genre. The hentai is fucking hot, and the game lets you know when you’re going to see the next piece. It’s all so good until you run out of energy, and they try to make you buy some shit in the store to keep going. This game is free to play for maybe an hour if you’re lucky, but after that, it’s pay to play. You fucked up this time, Nutaku.