My Gaming Audio History: Bubble Bobble (1988)

Here's a game I played a ton growing up.  I don't think I ever played it in an arcade, although, clearly, it's designed for an arcade two player setting.  It worked well for me at home where I could play with a friend, one of my parents, or my brother.  Interestingly, this is one of the first game music themes I remember playing on the piano.  For some reason, I always played it in B, although I hear it in these examples in Bb.  In any case, it's a relatively simple theme with just a few chords and considering that it takes more than an hour to beat it, I definitely heard it plenty of times as I played!

I love that the music is by a female composer, Tadashi Kimijima, listed as Kimi in the game credits.  If you've followed the blog for any length of time or know about my academic research interests, you'll know that I'm very interested in women composers and women working in music.  I don't understand why nearly every composer (painter, sculptor, author, etc) commonly known is a man.  Perhaps teaching at an all girl performing art camp for the last several years got me more in touch with seeking out women in the arts, or maybe it's to do with my sexuality.  Either way, I'm always interested to find when women are working in the field of art creation, most commonly dominated by men.  Here's a prime example.  Other than Bubble Bobble's music, I can't find that she made any other video game music.  (I've also found mention that the game music is by a group, Zuntata, that was Taito's in house composition group.)  As always, if you know more, leave me a comment as I'd love to know more.

The game music is pretty simplistic, basically just a main theme that is interrupted for a hurry up (faster) version of the music or an invincibility theme.  Fairly similar to Super Mario Bros, except there's no underground, under water, etc.  With the hurry up theme comes the sound of a lethal monster arriving on screen whom you must avoid-- a very chromatic fanfare announces its arrival and it simply sounds as deadly as it is.  At the end of the game there's a final boss music.  Here's a link to the soundtrack for the NES game if you want to hear.  I hate how this guy adds reverb, but that's the best I can find now...  To hear even better sounding audio, watch the complete arcade playthrough here.

Here's a breakdown of the tracks:

Title screen: 5 sec.
Main theme: Bb major, 45 sec, 129 BPM.
Hurry theme: Bb major, 37 sec, 149 BPM.  Same as main theme, but faster.  1.5 sec alarm plays before the speed up.
Skel arrives: a 1.5 sec deathly (bass) intro to the same hurry music.
Invincibility: 5 sec.  C major, d minor, e minor (chord planing).
Boss theme: A minor, 13 sec, very dissonant and chromatic, Flight of the Bubble Bee-esque.
Victory: 3 sec.
Bad ending: 5 sec. Bb major
Happy end: 10 sec.
Credits: C Major  88 sec.
Thank you: G major, 10 sec.
Game over: 2.5 sec.
Secret room: 45 sec.  A minor, Here's a complete recording as the above soundtrack cuts this track early.  Not used in game.