Bubble Trouble

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### How to play

Bubbles will appear in different zones around the arena, JUMP into them to pop them and score points to win!

### Added in

Season 5 (Legacy)
(20 July 2021)

### Designed by

Harry Prebble
Sam Pickard

### Duration

05:00

**Bubble Trouble** is one of the rounds in *Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout*. This round is a hunt and was first introduced in Season 5 (Legacy).

## Course Description

### Standard Version

The goal of Bubble Trouble is to earn points by popping Bubbles. Most bubbles will give one point, and the harder to reach golden bubbles will give five. Players must earn 15 points to qualify. If playing in a Squad, points are shared between all squadmates and the qualification quota is multiplied by squad size.

The arena is divided into five circular zones, of which only two can spawn bubbles at a time. It is possible to tell which zones have bubbles in them because they will have a glowing light effect on them.

The available zones are:

* A set of two raised circular platforms, covered and surrounded by Lily Pads.
* A Log Swing located above a Blizzard Fan, with four Rotating Hammers that can knock players off the log.
* A set of four converging Drawbridges arranged in a plus shape above a pool of Water, with an Expanding Frog in the center.
* A set of eight Punching Gloves arranged in four pairs, forming a square on a raised circular platform, accessible by ramps.
* A Rotating Wall on top of a raised circular platform, accessible by ramps which have one rotating hammer each.

The center of the arena contains a Spinning Plate which can be used to quickly traverse across the five zones.

If the qualification quota is not filled after 5 minutes, the round ends and everyone not yet qualified is eliminated. Because of the nature of this round (including zones with easy-to-obtain bubbles), it is almost impossible for this scenario to occur.

### Alternate Versions

Starting from Season 5.1 (Legacy), the following variations may appear:

* The pairs of Punching Gloves in the punching glove zone may alternate instead of being synchronized.
* Two smaller upwards facing blizzard fans orbit the blizzard fan on the Log Swing Zone.
* A Rotating Beam may be placed over the spinning plate.
* Lily pads may take the place of the drawbridges in the Drawbridge zone.
* An enormous Expanding Frog (christened King Frog) replaces the lily pads in the lily pad zone, on the topmost platform in the middle.
* A rotating beam with 4 spokes may replace the rotating wall in the wall and hammers zone.
* Flippity Bippities may replace the hammers in the wall and hammers zone.

Starting from Season 1, the following variations may appear:

* One of punch glove per pair on the punching glove zone will be facing upwards, unable to hit anything.
* The rotating wall in the rotating wall zone may be replaced with a rotating beam with 2 spokes.
* The log swing from the log swing zone may be removed.
* The expanding frog in the drawbridge zone might be replaced with a lily pad.

Starting from Season 2, the following variations may appear:

* The Spinning Plate on the center of the arena may be replaced by a Shifting Conveyor Belt.
* The Log Swing Zone is entirely different. It features a Low-Gravity Zone and a few layers of respawning hex tiles.

## Course Strategy

Because there are only two zones spawning bubbles at a time, there will be several players in one zone at any given time. It may be a good strategy to leave a zone before it stops spawning bubbles so that you can be one of the first to reach the next zone that starts spawning bubbles, making it easier to pop some bubbles for yourself.

Another strategy is to learn where the Golden Bubbles spawn and go for those. Many players will ignore these due to being more difficult to reach, so if you know how to reach them, they may let you qualify more quickly.

The Log Swing and Fan zone is generally regarded as the hardest zone to pop bubbles, as it is very easy to lose control by ragdolling in mid-air. If this frequently happens to you, avoid that zone wherever possible (unless it is the only zone spawning bubbles, which can happen if only the golden bubble is left in the other zone that is spawning bubbles).

### Golden Bubbles

Unlike the golden rings in Hoopsie Legends, the golden bubbles will invariably spawn in the same places every time, provided that the zone that contains them is active. Being worth 5 points each, learning how to collect them properly may give players a definite advantage on the match. The following table includes their location as well as strategies to collect them:

 Rotating Wall Zone | Above the Hammer that's furthest away from the central spinning plate. | From the elevated platform, either get a running start, then jump and dive at the apex of your jump, or jump on top of the hammer to get it.

### Alternate Versions

* The different boxing glove pattern does little to alter the general strategy of the zone: Get in before everyone else to collect the bubbles before they do.
* The addition of extra fans does not improve the log swing zone signifficantly. It is typically better to avoid the zone altogether in favor of whichever other zone is active, unless you're just a few bubbles short of qualifying or to quickly go for the golden bubble.
* Jump sooner than you think you will have to in order to compensate for the inertia of the spinning plate and successfully avoid getting hit by the rotating beam. Being hit by it can cause a signifficant delay and prevent you from getting to the bubbles before other players.
* Use the lily pads to reach the bubbles that are high up, use the ones angled diagonally to reach the top of the expanding frog for the golden bubble, be mindful that there are four lily pads underwater, surrounding that frog, that might be difficult to spot at a glance. you can use these to get on top of the frog when it is deflated as well.
* When King Frog replaces the topmost lily pad, the bubble directly above it becomes harder to get. Players must hop on top of King Frog as he is deflated and wait for him to inflate in order to reach it (keep in mind that this particular bubble is only worth one point, however). Don't forget that even with a solitary bubble left in this zone, it is still considered active, meaning only one other zone can be actively spawning bubbles (or also likewise have one difficult bubble remaining).
* The low height of the rotating beam makes it easier to traverse this zone and get to the golden bubble in general.
* While being easier to avoid than the hammers, the flippity bippities tend to push player much further back if they do get hit. It is signifficantly easier to reach the golden bubble in this zone by jumping on top of the flippity bippity when it isn't moving.

## Final Variant

A Final type variant was introduced in the Bubble Trouble Trials playlist on 25 July 2021. In this variant, the player who finishes first will win the entire show.

Many of the same strategies apply to the final variant, but note that the required score is 20 instead. Starting position is incredibly crucial here; if you don't spawn near a zone that already has bubbles, you're practically out of the running.

## Known Bugs

**Wrong round name\***

On 28 April 2022, Bubble Trouble accidentally got renamed into "Airtime", which prevented the round from being selected in Main Show.
This bug did not affect Squads Duos or Squads Show.
This bug was fixed at some point during Season 6 (Legacy).
**No Bubbles\***

*As of 14 July 2022*: Randomly, no bubbles will spawn. This is likely the reason why Bubble Trouble was removed from Solo Show on 15 July 2022 and at the very beginning of Season 2.
\*This name is a conjectural name and has not been somewhat uniformly agreed upon.

This bug appears to have been fixed as of the introduction of The Vault show on 7 March 2023

**Loading Round Bug\***

As of the Summer Breeze Update, there appears to be a major bug where the round will not load when picked for the next round. This will cause the game to remain on the loading screen indefinitely. There is no way to get around this and the only thing you can do is leave the game.

This is what caused it to be removed from The Vault show as of 13 September 2023, meaning it is no longer available in any show in the game.

## Medal thresholds

* Gold - First place
* Silver - Top 20% of players in the lobby
* Bronze - Top 50% of players in the lobby
* Pink - Qualified, but outside of the top 50%
* No medal - Eliminated

## Trivia

* Curiously, the loading screen art features a Spinning Plate with Season 1 (Legacy) visuals, instead of the in-game Season 5 (Legacy)-themed one.
* Bubble Trouble started development as a level called "King of the Hill".
* This is the longest vaulted round, having been removed in Season 1.3 and at the very start of Season 2 (see **History of Bubble Trouble**) It hasn’t returned to the main shows since. It has been vaulted for over 550 days.
* Lasting only for a few hours after Season 2 started, Bubble Trouble has the record for the least amount of availability during a single season.
* As of the Fall Force Update, this is currently the only Season 5 (Legacy) round vaulted, and is unlikely to come back soon since it is removed even from The Vault show due to the loading round bug.

## See also

* Bean Hill Zone, a similar Hunt round about collecting items (in that case, rings) by simply touching them.

1. ↑ https://youtu.be/I0imGOa0RkI
2. ↑ https://twitter.com/BenNizan/status/1418625133724438531