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[Xaron]

Hi all,

so I sometimes scratch my head to make a match 3 game because that's something which can be done in realistic time. I know good graphics are a must have for such a game but beside that, what would you like to see in a match 3 like game?

The reference might be Candy Crush Saga, where I'm amazed that such a (basically) simple game works so well and is fun indeed!

And further more, I know this market is highly saturated and I don't expect stellar results but what do you like about match 3 games and what not? Do you prefer the swap mechanism (like in Candy Crush) or do you prefer the collapse style like in Diamond Dash?

One idea about this would be this: I would like to do more chain reactions. In the classic match-3-scheme you just combine 3 and they collapse, you combine 4 and you get some "special" jewel, combine 5 and you get something more special and so on.

An idea would be to differ from that. So 3 jewels together won't collapse immediately. If you add a fourth one it starts to "react" a bit (shown as pulsating), if you add a fifth and more it starts to become instable. So it's more a matter of time. The more jewels of the same kind are together the more unstable this block becomes till it collapses by itself. You can always collapse a block by tipping on it (like in Diamond Dash or Collapse). So the goal would be to combine as much of the same jewels as possible until they collapse due to their mass. It's more like a nuclear reaction where you just add and add till you get the critical mass. Don't know if that is clear? I mean that way you have some "time pressure" to build up large blocks. Look, 3 jewels together would be stable, 4 would take for instance 8 seconds to collapse, 5 jewels 6 seconds, 6 jewels 4 seconds and so on. The larger you get it the more points you get!...

Or for a collapse kind of game, how about using the sensors of the mobile device as another input? I mean consider a collapse type game where you collapse blocks of equal colors on a quadratic field. Now you can rotate your device (from portrait to landscape) and all blocks just react to this new gravity location and fall down to the new "bottom" which was the side before. How would you like that? Could it be fun to include device rotation as another "input"?

Thanks and cheers!

[erebusman]

I spent the first two years of my coding games working on Match 3.

Not because I thought it was my dream game but because of a lot of practical reasons.

Market research showed that Match 3 was in the top 3 categories of casual games.

It lends itself very well to mobile gaming ; which was the easiest way to get self published.

I thought at the time the programming of the game logic would be easy (not so easy afterall once you start putting in special gems!)

A few of my Match 3 products :
Pirates Jewels
Holiday Cheer
Pirate Jewels II .

In the end it has cost me more money to produce Match3 games than I have made out of them.

In addition to that I have come to realize that if I'm going to spend that long working on games that I really have passion about making rather than things I was doing just because I thought the market would treat me better. 

When I'm done making my next game I want to feel that the journey and accomplishment were enough reward even if I'm the only one who ever plays it!

I'm not suggesting that you should not enter match 3 genre. I'm suggesting you review your reasons and make sure that it is what you really want to do because there's an immense amount of competition there and the odds you are going to be King or PopCap is extremely low.   

In so far as the mechanics you mentioned I can only suggest you focus on fun and understandable game play. If players find the game play too complex (as with the Pirate Battle mode in Pirates Jewels II) they won't like it.  If the game play doesn't progress with difficulty over time they will find it potentially boring.

Best of luck regardless of your decisions.

[Xaron]

Thanks for sharing your experiences! I know it's a very hard genre to enter with those thousands of competitors. I don't make that for the money just for fun. I've done several games so far but never made a match 3 one. And I think I would mix it with some kind of a RPG like Puzzle&Dragon.

[kurismakku]

I was actually working for company where we made match 3 "Puzzles & Dragons"-like game, but with multiplayer.
I bet dozens of games like this are made as we speak.
Even if you make something innovative and fun, it will be hard for players to notice it because on surface it will look similar to everything else. So the key thing is marketing.

[Xaron]

That's pretty interesting. Can you tell how this game was received?

[kurismakku]

That's pretty interesting. Can you tell how this game was received?

It is still in alpha state so it isn't officially released yet. But lot of money is gonna be invested in marketing, and in balancing game difficulty to increase monetization.