Inside Out: Thought Bubbles

Inside Out: Thought Bubbles is a Bust-A-Move / Puzzle Bobble variant based on the 2015 animated Pixar movie Inside Out set in the mind of the girl Riley Anderson where five important emotions become personified. The bubble concept is adapted so that they represent memories and players have to help clear Riley's mind by completing levels.

The five emotions are the main characters in the game and they are unlocked gradually by completing levels. Memory matching is done based on colour. By launching a memory to attach it to a group of two connected memories of the same colour, they disappear and also everything below as long as it is not connected in another way to the memories above. Memories are shot using a launcher near the bottom of the screen, not using a slingshot mechanic, but by tapping and holding to aim using an arrow as guidance and then releasing. As in most similar games it is possible to bounce using the sides or the top of the screen. Most levels require a certain amount of memories to be removed with a limited amount of launches, but the objective changes with the type of mission. There are skill shot missions based on hitting a target surrounded by memories, rescue missions where characters need to be freed and Brain Freeze where a frozen object needs to be removed by clearing the surrounding memories. In the latter matches are more difficult as memories can get frozen and do no react in the usual way. Some levels have grey, faded memories that cannot be removed through matches, only when matches are made above them.

Similar to Frozen Free Fall the different characters (emotions) are unlocked gradually and can be chosen before starting a mission. They each have a unique ability that can be activated by collecting a certain amount of memories of a specific colour. Joy is provided at the start of the game and she collects yellow memories to use her ability where any memory and the connected ones of the same colour turn yellow. Sadness uses blue memories to create a horizontal line of blue memories changing different colours, Anger launches a fireball etc.

The game is free-to-play and uses in-app purchases. These can be used for additional lives. Lives are lost if a level cannot be completed in the required amount of shots, but they also generate over time. The other in-app purchases are for gems used for additional shots per level or tied to three optional power-ups. These are Line Power, Rainbow Memory and Extra Choices. Buying a power-up makes it last for the entire level. Line Power extends the guidance arrow for better accuracy and Rainbow Memory makes memories match any colour. Players can tap the launcher at the bottom to switch between options for memories and using the Extra Choices power-up expands this to four choices. Up to three stars can be earned per level, needed to keep progressing. These are based on the performance, also for instance incorporating the amount of matches or the remaining moves.