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How to play Pop Nova

Goal

Aim the launcher and shoot bubbles up at the board. When your bubble touches others of the same colour and makes a group of 3 or more, they all pop. Any bubbles that are no longer hanging from the top fall — and falling bubbles are worth the most points! Don't let the bubbles cross the dashed line near the bottom.

You have a few seconds to aim each shot: 10 seconds on levels 1–5, 8 on 6–15, 7 on 16–25, 6 on 26–35 and 5 from level 36 (one more second with the Easy aim guide; 6 seconds in battles; 20 seconds in Puzzles, which are about thinking). A ring round the FIRE button runs down, turns red and ticks for the last 2 seconds, and then the launcher fires by itself. On a computer the arrow follows the mouse while it's below the red line.

Modes

• 🗺 Adventure — 200 levels in 20 worlds of 10, from Candy Reef to the Black Hole. Each world has its own painted picture, music and moving scenery, and brings something new (bank shots, critters, rocks, ice, chains, ghosts, wind, bombs, timers…) — a tip explains it the first time. Level 10 of every world is its finale: a 👑 boss on every second world, a ⭐ challenge on the others. Win a level to open the next and earn 1–3 stars; a new world opens when you've beaten the finale of the one before and have enough stars in all (the map shows what's needed).
• 🧩 Puzzles — 50 hand-made boards in 5 packs (First Pops, Bank Shots, Chain Reactions, Blockers, Master). The balls come in a fixed order (the next few wait beside the launcher; you can still swap), with no power balls unless the puzzle gives you one. Clear the board in par shots for 3 ★, one more for 2 ★, two more for 1 ★ — then you're out of shots. You get 20 seconds to aim each shot. Stuck? Tap 💡 for a hint; after two tries the first shot of a solution shows as a gold line. Get 15 ★ in a pack to open the next.
• ♾ Endless — the top slides down all the time: slowly at first, then faster and faster. A new level every minute brings more colours and, from level 3, rocks, frozen, bomb and timer bubbles. Every 3 levels the picture and music change, through all 20 worlds. Big drops push the top back up a little. Your top 10 scores are kept on this device.
• 📅 Daily — one new board a day, the same for everyone: score as much as you can with 40 shots.
• ⏱ Time challenge — score as much as you can in 3 minutes (the clock stops while you pause). The top slides down like in Endless, a bit faster; cross the line and it's over early. Signed-in players' best scores go on the 🏆 leaderboard.
• ⚔️ Battle — 2 to 4 players (friends online or the computer), each with their own board, all at once: ⚖ Tug of War, 🏁 Race, 🤝 Co-op Survival or ⚔️ Classic Attack.

Adventure goals

• 🫧 Clear every bubble (sometimes in a shot limit; often the ceiling comes down every few shots).
• 🐾 Free the critters — pop them or make them fall.
• ⭐ Reach a score in a number of shots.
• ⬇️ Drop a number of bubbles — the box in the board counts them: ⬇ 12/30 dropped. Pop what holds a clump up and it all falls.
• ⏬ Survive — new rows push in from the top every few shots; keep them off the line until the countdown runs out (🛡 6 shots to survive). Clearing the board wins too.
• 👑 Beat the boss — every bubble you pop or drop hurts it; power balls hurt a lot. Every few shots it throws bubbles back.

Battles

• ⚖ Tug of War (the main battle, 2–4 players) — every board's top slides down slowly. Each shot that pops or drops bubbles pushes: your own board goes up a little and your target's board comes down faster (their pressure fades again after a while). The scale between the boards tilts towards whoever is winning. At 3:00 it's Overtime: everyone's top falls faster and faster until someone crosses the line. The last board standing wins. Your pushes go to the player doing best — tap a rival's board to aim at them instead (tap again for automatic).
• 🤝 Co-op Survival (2 players) — a team: both boards share one pace that keeps speeding up, and every drop pushes both boards up. If either board crosses the line the team is out. Your result is the time you survived and your team score.
• 🏁 Race — everyone gets the same level. The first to clear it wins the round. Play 1 round, best of 3 or best of 5.
• ⚔️ Classic Attack — everyone starts from the same board. Popping more than 3 at once and dropping bubbles sends junk bubbles to a rival; your own attacks first cancel junk on its way to you. The ceiling comes down every 8 shots (faster after 2 and 3 minutes). Last player in wins.

In battles you have 6 seconds to aim each shot.

Curse balls (Tug of War)

A 3-streak or dropping 8 or more in one shot earns a curse ball (a dark purple swirl), and now and then one turns up by itself. Shoot it at a colour on your own board: that colour is cursed on your target's board.

• 🪨 Stone — their bubbles of that colour (up to 12) turn to cracked rock: 2 pops next to one break it, or drop it.
• ❄ Ice — their bubbles of that colour freeze: frozen bubbles never drop — they have to be popped.
• 🌫 Fog — their next 5 balls are hidden until fired.
• 🔀 Jumble — the balls in their launcher and next slot change colour.
• ⏱ Haste — only 3 seconds to aim, for 10 seconds.

When one hits you, the edges flash and a warning says what happened (“⚠ ICE ATTACK — blue frozen!”).

Controls

• Aim slider (under the launcher): it works like a joystick. Push the knob left or right and the arrow turns that way — a little push turns it slowly for fine aiming, all the way turns it fast. Let go and the knob springs back to the middle; the arrow stays where it is. On a touch screen you can also drag left or right anywhere below the arrow's tip. Letting go never shoots.
• FIRE: the big round button bottom right shoots.
• Swap: tap the small bubble beside the launcher (or the bubble in the launcher) to swap your bubble with the next one.
• Mouse: the arrow follows the mouse — no need to hold a button. Click to fire, right-click to swap. The mouse wheel turns the arrow a little at a time (hold Shift for finer).
• Keyboard: ← → turn the arrow (a little faster the longer you hold them; hold Shift for fine turns), Space (or ↑) fires, ↓ or S (or X) swaps, P pauses, M music on/off.
• The bubble waiting next stays the colour it is, even if that colour has gone from the board — use it, or swap it.

Aim guide: Easy or Hard

The dotted aim guide shows where your shot will go — including bounces off the walls — and a ring shows where it will stick.

• Easy — the guide is always on, and you score half points (level targets and star marks are halved too, so they're just as hard to reach).
• Hard — the guide shows on the first 3 levels only (Adventure 1-1 to 1-3, Endless levels 1 to 3) — after that it's up to you, and in the Daily challenge and battles there's no guide. Full points.

Pick it on the world map, on a level card, or in the game's setup menu. It's kept on this device, and in a battle each player picks their own.

Power balls

Now and then a power ball comes along in your launcher instead of a bubble (you can swap it like any other). Pop or drop a bubble with a 🎁 gift inside and your next ball is a power ball.

• 💣 Bomb — blows up everything around where it lands (even rocks).
• 🌈 Rainbow — becomes whichever colour pops the most where it lands.
• 🔩 Steel ball — smashes straight through every bubble it can pop on its way (it bounces off the walls) and stops at the top, a rock or a boss.
• ⚡ Lightning — clears the whole row it hits.
• ⬆ Lift (Endless, Time challenges and battles) — pushes your board back up two rows.

Special bubbles

• 🪨 Rocks — can't be popped, only dropped (clear what holds them up) or blasted. A cracked rock breaks after 2 pops next to it.
• 🧊 Frozen — stays put even when nothing holds it up; it has to be popped.
• 💥 Bomb bubbles — pop one and it blows up its neighbours too.
• ⏳ Timer bubbles — count down with every shot; at 0 a new row comes in. Pop them first!
• 🐾 Critters (Ember Canyon on) — pop them or make them fall to set them free.
• ❄️ Ice (Frost Peaks) — the first match only cracks the ice.
• ⛓️ Chained (Deep Sea) — hold up everything hanging from them. Pop a bubble next to one to break the chain.
• 🎨 Shifting (Neon City) — change colour after every shot.
• 👻 Ghosts (Haunted Woods) — every other shot they fade and your shots fly through them.
• 🌬️ Wind (Desert Mirage, Storm Coast) — bends your shots; it changes direction every 4 shots. The aim line shows the curve.
• 👑 Bosses — every bubble you clear hurts them; power balls hurt a lot. Every few shots they throw bubbles back.

Every colour also has its own symbol (heart, star, diamond, drop…) so you never have to rely on colour alone. Big moments get a shout: BIG DROP!, AVALANCHE!, CLOSE CALL!, COMEBACK!, PERFECT!

🎃 Spooky edition (1 October – 7 November)

• Spooky look — Halloween balls (pumpkins, ghosts, bats, skulls, potions, sweets — same colours as always), a haunted backdrop and spooky sounds and music, in every mode. Switch it on or off in the setup menu, on the world map or in the pause menu.
• 🎃 Halloween challenge — 3 minutes like the Time challenge, full of jack-o'-lantern bomb bubbles (each one that goes off is worth 50 extra), and the top falls faster as the time runs out. It has its own leaderboard for the season.

Points

10 points for each popped bubble, 20+ for each falling bubble (more in big drops), 100 for each critter, and a streak bonus for popping with shot after shot. Winning gives a bonus for shots left over.

Stars (fair stars)

Winning a level earns ★. The 2nd and 3rd stars come from star points, which count only what you do yourself: 10 for each bubble you pop and 20 for each one you drop with a normal ball, and 100 for each shot you have left (or each shot under par) when you win. Power balls help you win, but they don't add star points, so a lucky bomb never decides your stars — and the Easy aim guide's half points don't change them either.

Each level card shows its marks (e.g. ★★ 1,200 · ★★★ 2,400 star points). While you play, the star bar under your score fills with your star points; its faint end is the bonus for the shots you still have, and the two little stars light up as you pass the marks. A good player who doesn't waste shots gets 3 stars on most tries. Your progress is saved on this device, and a reload carries on a level where you left it.

Pop Nova 2's Adventure is a fresh start: stars from the first Adventure are kept as a memory, and the new worlds open with new stars.

Tips

• Aim for the bubbles that hold big clumps up — dropping is worth far more than popping.
• Swap to save a colour (or a power ball) for the perfect spot.
• Use the walls: bank shots get round rocks.
• In Attack, a big drop just before the ceiling comes down can turn the battle.

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