Bubble Toad Review

Bubble Toad is a fun time killer from French indie developer HoneyPoney Games. This is the first game from this developer, and I believe it is very well made. The game features a unique yet simple art style, along with a simple task: travel upwards using bubbles.

In this game you play as a toad who seems unable to swim, despite being an amphibian. Your objective is to jump from your lily pad into the sky, using your tongue to pull yourself up with bubbles. Through your journey you can obtain coins, these can be used to buy aesthetic items, and you may also use coins to revive at checkpoint bubbles if you don’t want to start over. This game plays very smoothly in my opinion. One of my favorite features is that you can tap as many times as you can before you fall into the water if you miss. The ability to tap multiple times gives you an opportunity to fix mistakes, something not often seen in mobile games like this. The game features a range of customization for your avatar ranging from facial hair to particle trails; these aesthetic items can be unlocked by completing each level.

Bubble Toad encourages replayability in a few different ways, and can certainly keep you hooked. My girlfriend happened to peek over my shoulder as I wrote this, picked up the game herself, and hasn’t put it down since. For the competitive types, there is a personal time record as well as global rankings for each level. If global standings aren’t your thing, each level has a bonus time, and if you complete the level before this time you are rewarded with access to extra aesthetic items and you gain coins.

The 2D cartoon art style is refreshing in this game; we seem to be so accustomed to “high-tech” 3D and “retro” pixel games these days. The music is repetitive, but doesn’t annoy, something that seems to be hard for mobile games to do these days. Overall the style stays consistent between the art and the music - everything blends together for a fantastic experience that doesn’t go with the grain of the average money-grubbing “free to play”.

Bubble Toad is an adorable game, with difficulty for those who want it as well as leaderboards for the competitive players. The only downside are annoying pop-up ads, but they only appear in the death menu, and last for five seconds (not worth buying the $2.99/£2.31 ad free version in my opinion). I had a lot of fun with this game, the friends I showed it to enjoyed it as well. This game will certainly keep its place in the games folder on my Android.