Bubble Cave is a bubble-popping game that features several unique elements of play. Inside an underground cave shaped like a round container, bubbles and other objects drop automatically from an overhead shooter onto a dark metal ball at the center of the chamber. The player's goal is to remove colored bubble balls in clusters of three or more, earn as many points as possible, and prevent balls from piling up to the shooter or against the walls of the cave.
The player controls the rotation of the metal ball. They drag a horizontal metal chain near the bottom of the screen right and left to rotate the ball clockwise and counterclockwise, respectively.
Bubble Cave makes using the chain and aligning the ball with drops to create clusters of bubble balls difficult. More often than not, the player rotates the ball too far right or left, which results in a dropped ball failing to connect with a matching colored ball. Additionally, the game drops unpoppable objects like large stones and double-hit objects like ice-covered bubbles.
That said, the game also drops booster bubbles from the shooter, including clear bubbles encasing golden stars that transform all bubbles into stars, orange flames that burn at least one touched bubble, and blue energy bolts that blast all bubbles of the same color. A portal bubble exists as well. A growing wormhole created by it transports a large cluster of matching and non-matching bubbles and other objects away to some unseen space.
