Snake Match

recher 2021-04-26 09:21

Just to make things clear about the specificities of the Compos :

- The source code is embedded in the game (that's python !). When you click on the link to the game, there will be a text zone on the left side, containing the whole source code of the game. - The source code of the Squarity engine itself is available on github : https://github.com/darkrecher/squarity-code - There is also some documentation that may help you to create your own game in Squarity. But it's kinda messy for the moment, and all in French : https://github.com/darkrecher/squarity-doc

If you find the game too hard or too long, you could explore the source code a little, change the appropriate values, and click on the button "Exécutez" in the middle of the screen.

Have fun !

loig 2021-04-26 10:37

Nice idea. It takes some time to get used to the gameplay but after a few tries I enjoyed it.

david-horning 2021-04-26 10:43

This is really interesting. I would be curious to see what this looks like with more of an obstacle based progression system instead of matching for points system. Really solid entry!

ty 2021-04-26 10:51

interesting idea! i enjoyed playing it, but every time the console says that i'm close to van-random i get stuck :/ but still pretty fun! would've benefited from some audio or music, but it's a compo game and already pretty impressive :)

2021-04-26 14:30

Interesting concept. Easy to play, hard to master.

2021-04-26 16:30

Nice idea, need some time to understand what to do but it is OK after that.

recher 2021-04-26 19:17

Thank you all for your feedback.

As usual, I wanted to add many more features, other patterns of blocks, and other types of blocks (with 2 lifepoints, with gravity, ...) but had not time to do it.

@ty : well, that was just bad luck. Or maybe bad equilibration of the game. :-)

monkeybit29 2021-04-27 01:53

pretty cool idea, would love to see this concept developed further!

daniel-alhadeff 2021-04-27 23:01

This is a really cool and super unique game idea! I agree with @monkeybit29, I would love to see it developed further.

I also saw on your about page you made the engine yourself - great job!

digitalcrest 2021-04-27 23:16

As someone who's played way too many match3 games, this was an interesting experience. :D Was a little difficult to grasp how the snake worked, and not being able to manipulate the fruit like I'm used to. In overall a nice game.

srrinio 2021-04-28 00:01

I was a bit surprised with the concept, is simple but easy to learn to play, but could have some SFX and better sprites.

boxedmeatrevolution 2021-04-28 02:10

Very unique concept! I enjoyed the Python humour! It would have been nice if more of the upcoming tiles were visible. Often I hit a full line of blocks and wished I had been able to see it in advance to strategize.

aeveis 2021-04-28 05:11

I got to "The Earth looks more arbitrary than before", but then my snake got to maximum length so I couldn't keep going. The match-3 aspect doesn't become too apparent until you start hitting the walls, but then it's not too hard to try and find a match 3 to clear it. I guess the puzzle here then is more how efficiently can you go down without eating fruit, though I think that might be harder to figure out just from looking at the screen as you don't know what fruit will appear next. Overall pretty interesting, nice job!

recher 2021-04-28 06:09

@aeveis : when the snake is too short, you have to "rewind" it (push the button "1" many times). You come back home and you have to start a trip from the beginning, but you keep your XP and your level. So you can gain more XP and increase the snake length.

That's not clearly explained in the game that you can do several trip to level up, sorry. With some interface showing the XP and the curent length, it would have been better. Lack of time, as usual.

@boxedmeatrevolution : totally agree with you. The line limit for the scrolling should be upper. I realized it while testing, one hour before compo ends, and was too afraid to change anything in my code that would have created some bugs.

I guess this could be a skill the snake would earn when leveling up : "the snake ultra-vision", which would make the scrolling limit upper.

I will try to develop it further, by adding skills, power, achievements, interface, etc. I just don't know when.

recher 2021-04-28 06:10

@daniel-alhadeff : Thank you ! The squarity engine is my big personal project. Don't hesitate to join and make your own game with it.

reactor-scram 2021-05-01 14:22

Inspirational true story of Leon the Professional Fruit-Digesting Snake who in his hubris accidentally swallows the very items he needs to progress in the game, but luckily unlike other snakes he is the first to possess the power of backtracking

crazymouse 2021-05-01 14:30

cool game, I like the levels. every time going deeper and deeper, just like the theme :)

johnnyjw 2021-05-03 22:02

Cool game idea. I like the mix between matching and snake

cavedens 2021-05-07 00:57

Interesting concept. Good job

zathnic 2021-05-07 01:29

Very nice idea, would have been a perfect fit for the Combine 2 Incompatible Genres theme. The graphics are simple but charming. Would have liked more of an incentive to match the blocks, like gaining score on top of XP, or perhaps the maximum length of the snake could be shorter but matching fruits would reduce the snake's length at the end?

kooky 2021-05-07 20:12

This is really cool. An interesting mix of mechanics. I really like the idea of puzzley games about digging underground and having to be careful where you dig, for fear of dropping objects in the wrong place. Never seen it done with a match-3 mechanic before, nor a growing snake mechanic!

It's also cool that the more you play, the more you level up and the longer you get.

I'm also really grateful that you included an undo key for backtracking quickly and easily.

Well done!

recher 2021-05-13 10:10

Thank you for all your feedbacks.

@zathnic : I didn't know there was this previous theme. Maybe it will come up later, with another formulation. Like : "combine 2 incompabible genres, then add frogs and flying platforms.".

You are right about the incentive to do more matches. That's what I wanted to have with the XPs. Matching gives you way more XP than eating fruits, so you level up faster. But it doesn't work really well and you end up going deeper end deeper just by eating fruits and looking automatic random matches. I need to work on the game mechanics. Add some spells/powers to the snake, etc.

@kooky : Thank you. The undo key was really necessary for me, when I was testing the game. So, I just realized if it's useful for me, it may be for the others.

hacktier 2021-05-14 01:18

nice Game, good job!