Pop Rivals

Pop Rivals is a head-to-head bubble shooter built by QuickGameRoom. Two boards share one clock. You shoot coloured bubbles up into a ceiling of them, three of a colour pop, and anything left hanging falls. That much is familiar. The difference is what a big pop does: clear four or more bubbles in one shot, counting the ones that fall, and your rival gets a row of junk pushed in from the top of their board. Four or five send one row, six to eight send two, nine or more send three. The junk takes the colours you just popped, so a careless chain hands your opponent exactly the colours they need to send it straight back.

A round lasts ninety seconds. You lose the moment your bubbles cross the dashed line near your shooter, and you win on the spot if you clear your board. Every twelve shots your own ceiling drops a row, so sitting back and playing safe does not work for long. When the bell goes, whoever has fewer bubbles wins; if the counts are equal the round goes to sudden death and the next pop settles it.

The main mode is a ladder of levels against the computer, and the level is really the computer's tier. The first ten levels are a warm-up you are meant to win: the computer fires about every five seconds, misses more than half its shots, often passes up a big pop, and starts one row closer to its own deadline. It also telegraphs: before every shot you see its aim line swing onto the target, so you can read where its bubble is going and plan around it. From level eleven the handicap goes, a fifth colour arrives and the starting ceiling gets taller, and each level after that trims a little off its pause and its error rate. It reaches full strength around level sixty and stays there. There is no last level; the ladder keeps going and your progress is remembered on the device.

Play it three ways. Against the computer, as above. Pass and play on one phone, with the top board turned to face the second player so you both shoot toward the middle, each with your own finger. Or online: create a room, send the six-letter code or the invite link, and the match runs directly between your two browsers over a peer-to-peer connection. There is no account and no game server; the host's browser runs both boards and streams them to the guest, and if the guest drops the computer keeps their board going until they come back.

Drag anywhere on your half of the screen to aim, let go to fire. The dotted line shows the path including bounces off the walls, and the faint ring shows where the bubble will land. On a keyboard the arrow keys aim and Space fires, with A, D and F for the second player. A small shape inside each colour means you can still tell the bubbles apart if the colours look alike to you.

Our take: the computer's aim line is the whole game. Watch it swing, work out whether it is about to send you junk, and decide whether to race it with a quick three or set up the six that sends two rows back. Rounds are short, a minute and a half at most, and losing by one row at the bell is exactly the kind of loss that makes you press rematch. Pass and play is best on a phone laid flat on a table between you; online works best on two phones or a phone and a laptop.