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Since its debut way back in 1994, Puzzle Bobble has continued to entertain players of all generations. The colourful visuals, charming music, and simple-but-compelling gameplay of Taito's bubble-busting puzzler tend to win over most anyone who experiences it - be it in the form of Puzzle Bobble, Bust-a-Move, or weird, SKY decoder knockoff Beehive Bedlam.
But dedicated fan (and full-time tinkerer) Dr. Tom Tilley has taken his love of the Puzzle Bobble franchise to new levels, crafting an array of dedicated controllers for the series.
While things started (relatively) simply enough, with a cardboard replica of Bub and Bob's steampunk-style bubble blaster, then a salad spinner. Dr. Tilley has recently taken the authenticity one step further, converting an old, hand-cranked drill press into a controller and directly replicating the antiquated, crank-driven device used on-screen by scaly heroes, Bub and Bob.
As demonstrated in the video above, the drill press has been converted to interact directly with an excised mouse wheel, with the press's physical crank now operating the on-screen pointer in real time. Additionally, Dr. Tilley has implemented a pressure switch, with the "fire" command activated by a sharp puff of air into a mouthpiece. As a cute final touch, Dr. Tilley has crafted a cardboard Bub, who sits atop the press and can even turn his own little crank in sync with the player.
It's all in a day's work for the Australian computer scientist, who has previously featured in the Guinness World Records for building the world's biggest playable Game and Watch. The Puzzle Bobble drill press is deceptively simple in design, but genius in concept. I can also imagine that playing on high difficulty will give anyone an excuse to skip arm day. Since completing this project, Dr. Tilley has already moved on to his next scheme...
...Playing Puzzle Bobble with an apple peeler. Naturally.