Simple = Fun.
And DAMN is it fun! It's so incredibly simple and entertaining and addicting that it BOBBLE'S the mind. HAAAAAA!!
shut up.
You have just two actions really. You jump, and you shoot spit bubbles out of your mouth. That's about it. The challenge is in the levels themselves. You have one screen to deal with at a time...there's no side scrolling, no bosses...nothing like that. Just a room full of a few enemies. The trick is, finding ways to get to them to kill them before they kill you. Oh..and you have to do it in a certain amount of time or a big ugly white death fish will come to haunt you until you die.
But really, that's all there is to it. There's not complicated control scheme. No stupid convoluted plot. No managing of resources. No bazillion button combinations. No spread out open ended world. No. This is a GAME! Something I feel most developers forgot about. Now they're all trying to make movies and deep involved characters and immersion and all that crap.
Look guys. Take a break. Get some potatoe chips. Go home. Play Bubble Bobble. It will remind you when games were fun and interesting and challenging and rewarding. Screw normal maps. Screw bloom. Screw Online.
Bubble Bobble...I salute thee.