The classic rule
In Color Lines you pick a ball and send it anywhere a free path leads. Three new balls arrive after each move. Five of a colour in a straight line, horizontal, vertical or diagonal, disappear and score. The board is nine by nine, the end is a full board. Lines 98 is the Windows 98 version that most people remember, with the same rules and the next three balls shown in advance.
What Bubli keeps
- Coloured balls on a grid, one of yours moves per turn, and the board fills while you clear it.
- No timer and no lives. Thinking time is free.
- The run ends only when you are boxed in. The score is the point.
What Bubli changes
- One cell per move, not a path across the board. There is no pathfinding to second-guess; the piece goes where you drag it, if the wall lets it.
- Three of a colour side by side, in any shape, not five in a line. Clears come every few moves, and a five is a prize worth 100, not a requirement.
- A maze. Walls stop moves but never matches, so a wall between two rings is not a problem for a match, only for a move. Dead ends become the places where big groups are built.
- One new ring per move instead of three, on a smaller six-by-seven board. A run is five minutes, not twenty.
- Bombs: a rare ring that matches only other bombs. Three together wipe the board.
Who it is for
If you keep a Lines 98 window open at work, this is the same calm loop with less waiting between clears and more to plan around. If you have never played Color Lines, you do not need to: the rules fit on one card, and the game teaches them in the first ten moves.