Monkey Bubble Shooter is a rescue-style bubble-popping game. A monkey needs the player's help rescuing anthropomorphic bananas with tiny waving stick arms stuck inside of bubbles hanging in patterns on playfields across 23 regular levels and one infinite level. The player earns points and attempts to prove their fast and efficient bubble-popping skills by earning every achievement star available in each level.
In many bubble-popping games, the player uses a shooting tool, such as a bow and arrow or a cannon. Rescue-style games usually feature a character who acts as the shooter. The player directs the character to throw projectile bubbles, like balls, up into the air toward two or more matching connected bubbles to create auto-popping clusters.
In this game, the player directs the monkey to toss the bubbles at spots marked with an extended aiming line made of white dots. They can make it toss the first projectile or give it a secondary nearby projectile floating above a hollowed-out tree stump. They perform this swap by either selecting arrows on the stump or using a computer keyboard key.
Monkey Bubble Shooter awards the player standard points for every popped bubble. The player also receives bonus points for various types of strategic actions, such as popping clusters in a streak and even knocking non-matching bubbles from a pattern by popping a nearby cluster.
The game also provides bonus points when the player reaches the bananas with as few projectiles as possible. Every remaining projectile releases bonus points at the end of a level. All points appear near the top-left corner next to a vertical bar that displays the player's progress toward earning the three achievement stars per level.