Smarty Bubbles: X-mas Edition is a bubble-shooting game. Against a scene of a nighttime winter wonderland in a rural mountain cabin location, the player attempts to clear a snowflake-covered playfield of glossy, candy-coated bubbles by shooting matching projectiles from an arrow shooter. They also want to earn the highest possible score.
The player receives a shooter with a frosted pointer arrow. Although they don't have an aiming line to help them make more accurate shots, they receive a targeting ring when they use the controls in a specific way. The player shoots projectiles at two or more matching candies to pop the bubbles by color.
Smarty Bubbles: X-mas Edition helps the player achieve their goals by providing one preview bubble that allows them to plan their next shot ahead of time. They also receive four free passes for non-popping hits before the game issues a penalty. When they don't pop bubbles, they lose a white bubble from four in a row next to the projectile preview. If they lose all four, the game drops another row of candies onto the field and rolls some of the pieces into unplanned positions.
This game tests a player's patience and focus by refreshing the score near the lower-left corner in a distracting way. It doesn't reveal the red horizontal collision-warning band when bubbles slide too far until almost the last moment.
The game tracks statistics via the home screen. The player can track bubbles cleared, games played, games won, fewest shots, time played and number of bubbles popped by color.
