Bubble Shooter: Story is a bubble-shooting game in which a cheerful bear in a hot air balloon travels to floating land masses across 75 levels of play. The player's goal is to help the bear complete its journey by performing bubble-shooting tasks. The bubbles are more like bouncing balls. Although bubbles destroyed by a projectile burst on contact, the rest drop from the playfield into bowls below and around the shooter. The game then assigns points, golden coins and, if applicable, bonus coins.
The player must shoot a colorful projectile bubble at two or more matching connected bubbles to remove them from the field. Tasks might include revealing lights in the top row hidden behind bubbles, freeing animals trapped inside bubbles, or shooting at rotating targets. The player might sometimes use boosters to remove bubbles. They can use a bomb to take out multiple bubbles, a color wheel projectile to shoot at any color, a targeting line to aim better, and a multiplier to add five extra projectiles to the available total. The player uses their coin winnings to buy more boosters.
Bubble Shooter: Story features a bubble cannon instead of an arrow or ring shooter. The player can swap bubbles below the cannon to make matches faster. A number on the cannon reveals the total number of available projectiles. When the player completes a task, the game automatically drops the remaining playfield and projectile bubbles into the bowls.
