Match! Drop! Match! by clue

[raw]
made by clue for Ludum Dare 48 (JAM)

Match tiles to go deeper and find treasure!

Match! Drop! Match! is an action puzzle game. Try to make it onto the leaderboard!

test.gif

Controls and basic gameplay

Drag the mouse along three tiles with the first and last matching. When you make a match, the middle tile will drop down to the next board, and the first and last tiles will change color. (See the gameplay GIF above for some examples)

Use UP/DOWN, W/S, or the scroll wheel to move up and down between boards.

As you go to deeper boards, you'll get many more points for making matches.

Press A to enable accessibility mode (helpful if you have trouble distinguishing the colors).

More gameplay details

There are two game modes. The main mode is timed - you get 2 minutes to score as many points as possible. There is also an untimed mode if you want a more zen experience (to submit a score in untimed mode, you have to click the "End Game" button in the bottom-right).

Making a match on the top board gives you 1 point, and each board below that is worth 3 times as many points. So making a match on the second board is worth 3 points, the third board is 9 points, the fourth board is 27 points, etc.

(Note: you definitely don't need to know this to play the game, but we're mentioning it just in case you're interested) When you make a match, the first and last tiles change in a deterministic manner. In particular, if you put the six colors in a "cycle" of red->orange->yellow->green->blue->purple->red, the first tile's color will move backwards one in the cycle, and the last tile's color will move forwards one in the cycle.

Credits

Made with HaxeFlixel.

Design and programming by Phillip Ai, Colin Lu, Jon Schneider, and Anderson Wang.

Music by Anderson Wang

Art by Phillip Ai and Colin Lu

Ratings

Overall 478th 3.786⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Fun 338th 3.768⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 200th 3.929⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Theme 396th 4.018⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1177th 3.429⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Audio 782th 3.352⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1350th 2.056⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1572th 2.891⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Given 33🗳️ 21🗨️

Feedback

Syrail
27. Apr 2021 · 05:14 UTC
Took me a bit for the puzzle mechanics to click, but once they did it was awesome!
P7153
27. Apr 2021 · 23:47 UTC
Neat twist on the usual match-3 mechanics! The only issue is that it wasn't super clear how to play at first, even with the instructions. Still once I got the hang of it, it was a really fun game!
ipodtouch0218
27. Apr 2021 · 23:57 UTC
Puzzle games are always a personal favorite of mine when does well, and this game is an example of one done really well. Super fun and unique version of the match-3 type puzzle games, having multiple boards forces you to plan multiple steps ahead.
Echosai
28. Apr 2021 · 00:02 UTC
At first, I thought that this was a stretch for the theme, however, when I got the hang of it and started going "deeper and deeper" into the boards, it really clicked for me! It did take a while to properly realise what to do, but once I did, it was really fun and was an interesting take on other games. :) Good job!
Herman Chau
28. Apr 2021 · 00:06 UTC
Wow the leaderboard competition is so fierce. I reached 604 just now so barely missing the leaderboard cutoff.

Love the mechanics and the background track is great. I just read your detailed gameplay notes and didn't realize at all during playing that it was deterministic; I thought it was random with some weighted probabilities to make it more likely for you to be able to continue to form chains.

It's cool to see you all added colorblind accessibility also!
LDJam user 252856
28. Apr 2021 · 00:27 UTC
Interesting spin on the match-three genre. Did you consider adding time to the clock for making matches? I think that could be fun.
DallOner
28. Apr 2021 · 19:33 UTC
A Wonderful experimental entry, the idea is really clear and smooth. My main concern with the game is color theory. For me (color blind) is extremely hard to reconize yellow/green color (i think thats are the right colors xD) but is like a Mercyless mode for me try to make a single match with that colors.

Overall really cool and unique game. Great job.
🎤 clue
28. Apr 2021 · 20:11 UTC
@dalloner The game has an accessibility mode, as noted in the controls, which you can enable by pressing A. Let us know if you still have trouble distinguishing the tiles in the accessibility mode.
RexGame
28. Apr 2021 · 20:27 UTC
That interest me !
Robotex
28. Apr 2021 · 20:41 UTC
Wow! It's inovation in match 3 genre :) Amazing!
extar
28. Apr 2021 · 20:43 UTC
Lovely falling block puzzle game! It took me a while to get my head around the main mechanic for matching up starting and ending colours, but once I did the game turned out to be really fun. It'd be much nicer for the game to be extended each time you score a certain number of points or something rather than just being on a strict two minute timer, but I can understand why you might set it that way for the jam. Either way, great game, I'd love to see this polished up for a post-jam release. I also massively appreciate the fact you made it playable in the browser, it's such a helpful step for when you want to quickly get into playing a game. Great music too! :)
orlandobatista
28. Apr 2021 · 20:49 UTC
Really good interpretation of the match-3 genre for fitting into the LudumDare theme. The thing that I liked the most is the fact you guys have implemented a leaderboard! You could remove the devs names before submitting though!
Music and SFX are also nice. Solid entry!
🎤 clue
28. Apr 2021 · 20:52 UTC
@offdutyextractors @extar We thought about having a longer or extensible timer, but in playtesting the standard mode felt very intense, it felt like it would be really hard to stay focused enough for more than two minutes.

For players who want less time pressure, we added the untimed mode, which is more of a puzzle based experience.
Stroe Andrew
28. Apr 2021 · 20:53 UTC
Ok, let me tell you that this is a very innovative mechanism! I really love Match 3 genre and with this mechanism.

Besides that, The ArtStyle and the background music are very very good. Really amazing :)

Also big point on adding Leaderboard and as @extar said.. i would love to see a full Post-LD release! On mobile this game would rock
LDJam user 212364
28. Apr 2021 · 20:54 UTC
Nice game. I really love the take on the theme and it was a lot of fun to play. Having the two different modes that each posed their own challenge was a nice touch and a scoreboard is great to be able to see how you stack up. I think this could make a really great mobile game.
Turquoise Moon
28. Apr 2021 · 21:45 UTC
This is so much fun! Probably one of my favorite games I have played so far.
DallOner
29. Apr 2021 · 01:05 UTC
@clue oh dude! I didnt see that... People if u are color blind, By Press A is like Pray to Yisus and be hearded. 10/10 this game.
kfischer-okarin
29. Apr 2021 · 07:56 UTC
Quite difficult but interesting mechanic. This would work very well on a touch screen :) Good job!
aeveis
30. Apr 2021 · 05:31 UTC
Had fun, it took me a while to remember to do the L shapes, those are pretty key to keep going. Nice mix up of match 3! Since the results trickle down you get less and less blocks, there's something about that that feels it could be more balanced maybe? Like being able to make longer combos or something. Nice job!
RubixNoob13
30. Apr 2021 · 07:03 UTC
I was also a bit confused at first by the mechanics (thought you had to drag on 3 shapes that were ALL the same color) :)