No long-winded strategy, no enemy aliens, no unwieldy artillery targeting. Just shooting marbles mindlessly.

Playing Frozen Bubble

After you open up Frozen Bubble

Click on “Start 1P Game” (one player game), you’re presented with this:

One player game

You basically have a bunch of marbles (“frozen bubbles”) stuck like icicles at the top of the playing area. Your job is to get them to fall down.

You do that by aiming the shot marble you’re given at the bottom of the display upwards. Marbles of a given color dislodge all continuously touching marbles of that same color. So aim red for red, green for green. The marble beneath your shot marble tells you the color of the next one (for planning purposes).

Left and right arrow keys move the aimer, and up arrow key launches the marble.

Two player game

You can also play a two player game (choose “Start 2P Game” from the main menu):

In this case, there are two sets of key combinations:

For one player, left and right arrow keys move the aimer, and up arrow key launches the marble.

For the other player, X and V arrow keys move the aimer left and right, and the C key launches the marble. Sounds kind of strange, but it’s handy because the XCV keys are all in a row on normal keyboards.

Network play

Version 2 of Frozen Bubble supports playing over networks (both the Internet and local area networks). However, version 2 is not available on Windows at this time.

Installing Frozen Bubble

Frozen Bubble on Ubuntu/Linux

Frozen Bubble originated on Linux, and that’s where the latest version is currently available.

In Ubuntu and Debian, click here in Firefox to install. Or type this in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install frozen-bubble

For other Linux distributions, check this page.

Frozen Bubble on Windows

There are two ports of Frozen Bubble to Windows. Frozen Bubble Enhanced is the one you want to get. This is a direct link to the installer for Windows.

Frozen Bubble on Mac

Frozen Bubble is available on the Macintosh through Darwin Ports.

If Darwin Ports is already installed, type the following into a Terminal:

cd /opt/local/bin/portslocation/dports/frozenbubble2
sudo port install frozenbubble2

Frozen Bubble on Mobile Phones

You can even get Frozen Bubble on your cell phone. Check here for Android, iPhone, Java, and Symbian S60 (Nokia) versions.

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