Soap Panic

This article is about Soap Panic and its subsequent releases on Famicom/NES. For other games named Magic Bubble, see Magic Bubble.

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Soap Panic (ソープパニック), later released as Magic Bubble (魔術泡泡) in Taiwan and Bubble Bath Babes and Mermaids of Atlantis in North America, is an original puzzle game for Famicom/NES systems developed by Computer & Entertainment, or C&E, a Taiwanese developer of console and PC games. The original Soap Panic version was released in Japan as an unlicensed Famicom game by Hacker International in 1991 and is adult-oriented, featuring cutscenes of an adult nature with Japanese text. The game mechanics are similar to Tetris, but unlike most other Tetris clones, this one tries to differ from it.

Overview[]

In this game, you must manage the bubbles in a way to connect four (or more) of them with the same color. The pieces, which are composed of four connected bubbles of various colors, go up to the top of the screen (which is the reverse of Tetris). Some bubbles have a letter in them. Once you got all the letter which compose the word "Magic", you get the Magic Bubble.

When you beat a stage, you are awarded with a cutscene containing Japanese text and a picture of a woman, each stage losing more clothes (Fully dressed -> underwear -> nude). Once you have went through the 3 states for a girl, the game will reward you with a new one, which will go under the same process. There are 12 stages, which means that you'll see 4 different girls.

This game has a simultaneous 2-players mode. The option menu (which appears automatically after the title screen) let you choose the stage you want to start in, the type of game (Type A starts you off with an empty stage, while Type B starts you with two rows of bubbles already on the screen), between 5 levels of speed (in level 5, the pieces fall as fast as when you press up) and two different background music options.

Releases[]

Four versions of this game are known to have been released: Soap Panic, Bubble Bath Babes, Magic Bubble, and Mermaids of Atlantis. Soap Panic is the original release of this game, which is evident from a few aspects of the game. Namely, the game is implied to take place in a soapland, a type of brothel in Japan, both in the game's cutscenes and the game's name, with "soap" (ソープ) being a shorthand term used to refer to these establishments. This game and Bubble Bath Babes also appear to have been the first iterations of the game produced as they contain a level select code that was removed in Magic Bubble and Mermaids of Atlantis and lack the extra features those games contain. Soap Panic was released as an unlicensed Famicom cartridge game in 1991 by Hacker International, who would publish numerous other adult-oriented Famicom games without licensing from Nintendo. Considering the region-specific aspect of the theming, it is likely that this game was directly commissioned to C&E by Hacker.

Bubble Bath Babes[]

Bubble Bath Babes is an English localization of Soap Panic released as a 72-pin NES cartridge. It was published by Panesian Ltd. in the US and Canada and was made available via mail order in 1991. It is one of the rarest contemporary Western-released NES games known to have been released. This version replaces the first 6 pictures with new ones, but leaves the last 6 images and gameplay the same. The level select code from Soap Panic also works in this game. The text in the cutscenes is not translated from the original game, and is instead from a completely new script.

Magic Bubble (魔術泡泡)[]

Magic Bubble (魔術泡泡) is an enhanced version of Soap Panic developed and published for the Famicom in Taiwan by C&E in 1991. This version of the game retains the adult content and Japanese text from the original game, but the nude woman at the bottom of the screen in levels now has foam partially covering her chest. This version also adds game speed, type and stage selection options and an additional music track.

Mermaids of Atlantis[]

Mermaids of Atlantis: The Riddle of the Magic Bubble, or Mermaids of Atlantis, is an English localization of Magic Bubble released as a 72-pin cartridge for the NES that completely removes any adult content. Like the other Soap Panic releases, it was released in 1991, and this game in particular was a co-production between C&E and American Video Entertainment, the latter being the publisher of this game.

The title screen has been completely replaced with a static screen in comparison to the animated one in Magic Bubble and Soap Panic/Bubble Bath Babes. The sprites of the woman that appears at the bottom of the screen in levels have been edited to replace the lower half of her body with a mermaid tail and have her wear a clamshell bra. She also no longer caresses her right thigh and buttcheek, instead moving her tail. The cutscenes between levels have also been retooled to tell an original story. Both the title screen and cutscenes feature art that was done by Martin Gee, and the story told in the cutscenes was written in-house by American Video Entertainment.

Trivia[]

Silvers Lin and Kathy Chen are credited for programming and graphics respectively. They would both later work for Hummer Team.
The game was released again in 1995 in east Europe.
The correct ROM size of Soap Panic is 96 kilobytes, but a bad dump of 64 kilobytes and partially missing cutscenes was widely circulated on the internet.
In Soap Panic and Bubble Bath Babes, you can go through the stages using this code: Pause the game then press Up, Right, Down, Left. You can now choose the level using A and B. Once you chose the level, press Start twice. In Magic Bubble and Mermaids of Atlantis, you can watch the ending sequence with the following code on the title screen (after the C&E logo appeared): Select, Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Left, Right, Right, A, A, B, B.
There are no unedited images of gameplay due to the fact that a nude woman is constantly at the bottom of the screen.

Soap Panic

Contents

Overview[]

Releases[]

Bubble Bath Babes[]

Magic Bubble (魔術泡泡)[]

Mermaids of Atlantis[]

Trivia[]

Gallery[]

Magic Bubble[]

Mermaids of Atlantis: The Riddle of the Magic Bubble[]

See also[]