About six months ago, Discord rolled out a game-changing update that revolutionized our team dynamics. Despite being a small startup with members scattered across the globe, we've never felt closer. Our daily 15-minute standup, while informal, always left us yearning for more. But that all changed with this update.
Our team was an early adopter of Discord as a corporate communication software. However, it always lacked something that is not common. Yeah, yeah, Discord is looking excellent, very fast, and very customizable; you can configure role-based access, you can have fun with emojis, and you can create text and voice channels, but there was nothing that would make me say to all friends that it is the best tool for startup teams. Gods of Discord heard me, and things changed.
I remember a day when Discord released an in-built gaming feature. I have been sitting on a voice channel with my engineer friend while my poor Mac started to lag, so I decided to restart it. The new update was introduced right after the restart. We stopped working and began to uncover what was there. All the games looked very dull to us. So childish word games like SpellCast and Letter League almost made us think the whole update incorporates a company's vision to work with younger generations and teach them “words.” We felt like that, but then we tried Bubble League.
I was a badass Dota 2 player in my youth, playing 2.5k hours daily, so I am a massive fan of team-based competitive games. My colleague's friend also was a gamer. Our life changed when we started doing programming. Now, late nights playing WOW have replaced long nights fixing syntax errors. Games like Dota, LOL, WOW, Fortnite, and other popular competitive games require a lot of time investment to become good, and there is just no way we can afford it with our busy schedules. No game allowed us to spend less time, and at the same time, we were competitive, team-based, strategic, and easily accessible on MacOS.
Bubble League was the answer we didn't know we were looking for. At first glance, it seemed like just another game in the Discord collection. But as we delved deeper, playing game after game, it revealed its true colors. We realized it was the perfect team-building activity we had been searching for.
If you are familiar with Rocket League you will catch up with the concept of Bubble League pretty easily. It is a 4 vs 4 players 2.5d team-based competitive game which is easy to start and hard to master. The game is happening on a football field. There are 2 goals on different sides. There are 6 basic formations in which you can put your players. There are 2 power-up spawn points and 12 possible power-ups which are one-time and you can activate it any turn after getting it. To move your players you have to drag the power line, similar to how Angry Birds are working. That is it. Pretty simple and easy to start. The most fun part is that you can control a couple of players at the same time. So potentially we can play 1 on 1 or 1 on 4 or 2 on 2 or even 4 or 4, we don’t have that big of a team though.
It is already about 5 months since we are playing Bubble League almost every day and here are some advanced techniques we discovered.
The Big Ball Smash
If you take the power called Beach Ball, apply the attacking position called Option, and send all your forward players directly on the ball with the biggest power, the ball will jump to the skies and grow exactly in the opponent's goal. The combination was officially accepted as complete cheating with a 100% chance for a goal before we find the prevention
.
If the opposite team will lead all of its members to the goal with full power. The players will face the goal wall and pop back out of it which will make them stop at the goal line which will prevent the ball from getting in the goal. I call it the Turtle because you are like a turtle, coming to your goal to save it from the ball
The Offense Gambit
If the defense side takes the Box position the offense team has to choose Forward or Option position. In this case, with the right angle, the offensive side can lead the ball to jump from the wall and go directly into the goal. Very pretty 1 play goal which is very hard to block from the Box position, unless you know that The Offense Gambit is happening. In this case, 1 player can go not to the center, but to the wall and try to change the trajectory of the ball.
That is why I personally consider Box's position the weakest for defense. Alternatively, Option is the strongest position for the offense.
Pass
The pass is not a secret, everyone knows pass from soccer but it is hell hard to execute in Bubble League. However, if you master the pass - your score success rate will skyrocket. The idea is that you can make the ball go closer to you send player and then the second player will score the goal. Every such score looks amazing and causes a heavy reaction from the whole team. Perfect showing off a goal.
Jumper Boost
Every corner of a field has Jumpers which can be used to expedite the speed of the ball or the player. The interesting mechanic we discovered is that if a player strikes the jumper and then strikes the ball - acceleration is much more powerful than just the ball striking the jumper. I have seen a lot of scores made from 1 side of the field to another using this technique. It can be especially powerful while Big Jumpers are activated.
Conclusion
We got so crazy about this game that after winning a pitch competition recently, instead of getting a salary bonus we have chosen to make a corporate Bubble League tournament the winner of which will be able to choose what to do with $2k.
The game which was supposed to be competitive and at first glance may seem harmful to a corporate culture actually transformed our team. This additional 15 minutes per day of playing bubble league made us well-connected and friendly with each other. This is a time when we can meet in a completely informal manner and enjoy the game.
P.S If someone is not afraid to accept the challenge of a Scrimmage team we invite you to participate in the public tournament to figure out who is the strongest Bubble League team in the Discord