Mine-A-Match
A Match-3 Mining Puzzle Game
Controls
| Left-Mouse | Select Level / Token |
| R | Restart Level |
| Escape | Close Game (Windows) |
| F11 | Toggle Fullscreen (Windows) |
Left-mouse click on a token (rock, gem, or dynamite) to select it, drag it to a new position orthogonally (horizontally or vertically), and release the left-mouse button to place it. The move will only be accepted if the change in position creates a match-3 somewhere on the grid.
Rules
This is a match-3 puzzle game where you move tokens orthogonally, shifting elements in their rows and columns, allowing for deep strategy and long-term planning.
You have a limited number of moves per level to hit a certain point goal.
There are 5 tokens:
- Green rocks
- Blue rocks
- Pink rocks
- Orange gems
- Dynamite
Matching rocks of the same color awards you points to raise your score.
Matching orange gems gives you additional moves.
Matching dynamite reduces your score. Avoid matching dynamite!
| Rock Match-3 | 100 points | Gem Match-3 | 1 bonus move | Dynamite Match-3 | -1000 points |
| Rock Match-4 | 200 points | Gem Match-4 | 3 bonus moves | Dynamite Match-4 | -2000 points |
| Rock Match-5 | 400 points | Gem Match-5 | 5 bonus moves | Dynamite Match-5 | -4000 points |
| Rock Match-6 | 800 points | Gem Match-6 | 7 bonus moves | Dynamite Match-6 | -8000 points |
| Rock Match-7 | 1600 points | Gem Match-7 | 9 bonus moves | Dynamite Match-7 | -16000 points |
Each level has 3 different point goals to earn a 1 star, 2 star, or 3 star rating. You may continue to the next level if you surpass the 1 star minimum score goal for the level.
Development
This was supposed to be made for the Trijam 81 with the theme Mining, however it was not completed in-time for the jam due to external circumstances and a somewhat overscoped core match-3 mechanic of the orthogonal token movement with full grid displacement.
It was completed over the following few days in some spare time.
You can play the successive Windows builds available below, which show the design and development process from start-to-finish.
Credits
Haiyoooo / Eunice Lim: Lead Artist
Gunnar Clovis: Design & Development
Free 48 Gems Icon Pack by Cryptogene
Sound Effects created with BFXR
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Comments
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Its a "match-3" game, not that much that I can comment on that design. If anything, extremely impressive to have it finished within 3 hours! Feels ambitious :O
The goal is rather strait-forward with the point barriers and like the bonus move intensive you have with the crystals. The point-balance seems fine if, even if I find it difficult to see how anyone can reach the higher scores. However, I do feel the explosives are way to punishing. 1000 points feels like its a lot and it often felt the screen slowly got covered in the stuff, making the entire higher point gain all down to luck. Luck is unavoidable in mach games, but combined that you can get punished rather harshly just felt quite bad.
I also would have liked to see a bit more variation to the art of the rocks. all the rocks have a very similar color pallet, making you almost have to squint at times to know what needs to be matched. If the rocks have small gems stuck in them, why not use more variation on there colors?
It wasn't made within 3 hours haha
It was originally supposed to be for Trijam, but my artist disappeared and the core gameplay needed more time to program and bug-fix. The art for the three rocks and the pickaxe was done by Haiyoooo for the jam, the rest of the art was public domain assets just thrown together quickly, not a polished aesthetic.
The three star point goals are my high scores (rounded down to the nearest multiple of 500) after playing each level 2 to 3 times in testing (which consists of a starting two grids with the aesthetics and row order randomized).
It's meant to be rather difficult, with high strategic depth. The dynamite can be managed by grouping it up early and destroying it when your score it still low to non-existent, and/or by high-level board management, shifting the dynamite around so that it can't form. By moving not the element you want to match, but an adjacent element you want to relocate orthogonally, you have a lot of control of the grid. But it's definitely rather difficult / strategic, which I like. I've never really been a fan of typical Bejeweled-style match-3 games where you simply slide an element to an adjacent space to match, but here with the orthogonal movement you can do quite a lot more.
I have to admit when I'm wrong. The bomb strategy you described was something I did not even consider, and I also completely miss-played the game! I think that's a first I have made such an error. Completely missed the orthogonal movement freedom, I was just so used to the limitations of match-3-games that I did not even think you could move more then one step at a time (Strange, as I did play it for quite a while.)
So with that said, I can differently see now the strategic death that it creates, and the bombs make perfect sense now. Was way more fun, great work!