Eggbert’s Bird Bath (Playdate)

Eggbert’s Bird Bath is a bubble popping puzzler that, surprisingly enough, technically counts as a tie-in game. While perhaps unsurprisingly you don’t need to know about the source material in a game about a bathing dodo finding that his ceiling is getting covered with too many bubbles, Eggbert himself is a character that originated in Targy Comics. Essentially a comic strip sent out by way of e-mail instead of the newspaper, Targy Comics might be the one benefiting from association here, its cute matching puzzle game likely to find some curious players through this release on the niche Playdate game system.

 

In Eggbert’s Bird Bath, you play as the titular yellow bird that only coincidentally looks like a tub appropriate rubber duck. This dodo’s bath time is in jeopardy thanks to how many bubbles have accumulated on the ceiling, and should they manage to reach the tub itself, Eggbert’s bath will be over. However, Eggbert can hurl his own bubbles up at the building mass above, and should you match three or more of the same color, they’ll pop. “Color” might be a term used a little generously on the monochrome Playdate system, but the six different bubble types are differentiated rather well. The black and white bubbles stand out starkly, there’s a darker and lighter grey mesh pattern, and the last two are bubbles that gradually get darker towards their center or lighter towards their center. It may take a little bit to get used to the differences on your small Playdate screen since they are often matters of shading, but there’s never a timer on your ball throws so you can take your time to consider them and make sure you’re throwing bubbles where you want to be.

Your tossed bubbles will attach to wherever they make contact with another bubble, and there’s more to the game than making color matches because of it. If a pack of bubbles is fully separated from the main mass, it will actually harmlessly fall down into the bath tub, the player able to make more worthwhile progress by trying to plan to separate large chunks of bubbles rather than just aiming for whatever the easiest match happens to be. This actually ties into one of the things that most sets it apart from its conceptually similar inspiration Puzzle Bobble, that being rubber ducky collecting. Every now and then amidst the bubbles you’ll spot a rubber duck in one of the six colors. You can match a duck like it was any old bubble if you like, but if you manage to separate it from the pack and drop it in the bath water, it will be added to your collection. A range of cute and silly rubber ducks can be collected with rarer ones only appearing after you’ve built up enough points from regular matches, but their presence adds an interesting wrinkle to how you play. If you want to collect all 32 ducks you need to take risks and sometimes avoid easy matches so that the ducks can be properly separated and saved, but you also cannot tell if the rubber duck is one you’ve already collected. You might make choices counterintuitive to surviving the incoming waves of bubbles to try and complete your collection, or you might make the rough choice to pop a duck in hopes you can stick it out longer and maybe grab more ducks down the line that round. Having some only appear after the right point marks are hit can add to the weight of getting further into a round, the player not knowing if they might hit such heights again and left to consider if grabbing the duck is worth the gamble of potentially losing their deep run.

 

Eggbert’s Bird Bath does make the high score chase a bit more interesting by having three leaderboards as well. One is the more expected one for the most points earned from making matches, but there are also leaderboards for most ducks collected in a single run and for earning the highest match combos. Matches are actually more crucial for survival than just clearing up some of the fairly limited screen space. The bubbles come down from above under two conditions. One will be if you manage to pop any bubbles that are at the very top, this always forcing a new layer to appear immediately. The second, though, ties to a set of hearts in the top left corner. Any time you shoot a bubble at a spot that doesn’t make a match, you’ll lose one heart, and once all five hearts are gone, a new layer of bubbles appears and the hearts refill. Controlling when the bubbles appear ends up another important part of planning out your matches, and there are thankfully a few extra tools to help you out. Eggbert can store one bubble at a time and swap it in with whatever one he’s holding, giving you a little control if you’re just not getting what you need from the random ones you’re given. There are two special piece types as well, one being a bomb that will also take down adjacent bubbles of any color once its matched while the bubble sprayer will instead shoot out a little stream in the direction it’s facing to clear away a small line of other spheres. Managing to set up a bubble sprayer to shear off a huge chunk or detonating a bomb to clear out a cluster of hard to match pieces is a satisfying way to seize some control over the state of the play field, but there are some little bits of Eggbert’s Bird Bath’s design that can undermine your efforts.

Aiming your bubble throwing in Eggbert’s Bird Bath is done by way of the Playdate’s crank, and since the crank can detect even the smallest little nudge, you can find yourself trying to make the smallest adjustments to try and get your tossed sphere just where you want it. Admittedly, it is better to have more control than less since it would eliminate the possibility of landing perfect throws to limit your throwing range, but it can be a bit of a reach to try and manage the crank turning and throwing. There are two control styles, one where you throw with A and one where you press up on the directional pad instead, so you can pick whichever is more comfortable for you where you’re less likely to accidentally bump the crank when tossing. This can lead to moments where you do manage to thread the needle and make a toss around a layer of bubbles to hit some higher up match, but there is one true impediment that can’t be adjusted at all. Eggbert being in the bath tub isn’t just a cute framing for the experience. When he moves through the water to set up a shot, there are light physics at play, Eggbert bobbing in the tub in a way that will impact your aiming angle. Coming to a complete standstill can mitigate the waves of the water, but it can lead to an all too slow and careful playstyle if you always try to accommodate it. The water movement is contingent on your own movent speed, but it can feel like it limits the rhythm you’d otherwise slip into making your matches and might make you mess up a throw you had meticulously lined up all the same. Usually you will know you’re taking quite a risk trying to squeeze a piece into a tight gap so it won’t be a complete surprise that you might miss, but it’s an aesthetic touch with an admittedly detrimental effect despite it only really being felt when you’re already taking a big risk.

 

Eggbert’s Bird Bath otherwise has some properly cute aesthetic touches that definitely benefit it. Eggbert has a different outfit for the various main menu options, the collectible ducks have cute little jokes attached to their outfits, and the music even for specific menu screens you might not look at long is remarkably good. The theme that plays when you’re actually matching in the tub though is certainly the highlight, a relaxing electronic theme that starts of gentle before eventually swelling into a louder melodic piece that still conveys the chill vibe despite its increased prominence. Much like Tetris has become defined by its use of Korobeiniki as an accompaniment, Eggbert’s Bird Bath has a main music track that becomes an inseparable part of the experience, setting a nice tone for a puzzler that you can take your time in but still feel that pressure of all the bubbles hanging overhead that might just be one good match away from a beneficial collapse.

THE VERDICT: Eggbert’s Bird Bath makes some smart decisions so that its action is about more than just popping bubbles. The collectable rubber ducks introduce a need to be more thoughtful about what matches you’ll make, and the control you have over when more bubbles enter the play field encourages more strategic popping to help manage how the game advances. The excellent music supports the relaxing player-lead pace, and while the fluid physics feel like they can get in the way of popping, angling for different high scores or trying to grab all the duckies gives you more reasons to return to bath time than just a typical effort to score as much as possible by surviving for as long as possible.

 

And so, I give Eggbert’s Bird Bath for Playdate…

A GOOD rating. While puzzle game fans will immediately identify the Puzzle Bobble inspiration, Eggbert’s Bird Bath does set itself apart with its shift in focus. The endless matching is done at the player’s pace and its progression is something influenced by frequent careful matching, but alternate goals like trying to collect ducks or set up longer combos can lead to riskier play. The water physics feel like a complication that isn’t beneficial to the experience though and unlike crank handling they take more to work around to reliably launch your bubbles where you want them, but most throws won’t be the kind of make or break tight squeezes that you might feel sabotaged by Eggbert’s bobbing in the bath. For the most part, the bubbles can crowd the screen to the point you feel like you’re in danger of a loss only to make the right match that sends multiple rows tumbling away, that relief and satisfaction never really losing its impact. The rubber duck collection feels like an achievable end goal for those not interested in long term score chases but it’s also one tied to both surviving and accruing points, encouraging more consideration on when you might have to match a duck just to stay in the game or how to set up large bubble removals to last long enough for rarer ducks to appear. It may feel instinctual for a player to ask for it to be clear whether the ducks that appear are new ones or not, but it feels like a vital bit of mystery for making matching choices hold an extra bit of weight since you can’t easily dismiss a duck, especially when they’re generally uncommon enough that even higher scoring runs might not hit double digits for ducks collected.

 

While I haven’t seen enough of the weekly comic strips to say whether Targy Comics itself is worth a look yet, the game starring its cute little dodo is definitely a good puzzler for Playdate owners. Eggbert’s Bird Bath has its charms and some effective ideas to set it apart from other puzzle games using a similar format. The shake-ups to the bubble popping aren’t huge, but the extra considerations do make for a more fulfilling puzzle game experience where you can try to aim for the top or work on rounding out your duck collection so even weaker runs can still have a purpose.