Welcome to MATCHY MATCHY, the puzzle game of animal love.
CONTROLS:
O - confirm selection (in menus), make a match (in game), quit game (in pause menu)
X - back (in menus), pause game (in game), resume game (in pause menu)
CURSORS - select options (in menus), move cursor (in game)
HOW TO PLAY:
Connect pairs ( or more ) of matching animals to solve puzzles, get points, and make love not war.
To make a match, move the cursor so that at least 2 matching animals are directly above, below or to the side of the cursor, then press O (Z on keyboard). Matching more than 2 animals yields more points:
Pair ( 2 of a kind ) = 10 pts
Love triangle ( 3 of a kind ) = 20 pts
Double date ( 2 pairs ) = 30 pts
Love rectangle ( 4 of a kind ) = 40 pts
GAME MODES:
There are two modes, the relaxed PUZZLE mode and the hectic TIME ATTACK mode.
PUZZLE mode - The aim is to try to clear all the pieces form the board so that no animal is left behind. You don't have to clear the entire board to unlock the next level, though. There are 35 levels in total. Can you clear them all? This mode encourages forward thinking and careful planning. Beware of making Love Triangles as this might leave an odd number of animals behind.
TIME ATTACK mode - The aim is to play as long as possible and get the highest score. As you play, new pieces are added to the board, faster and faster. If you run out of valid moves, several pieces will get added to the board at once! Also any wrong move will be punished by an extra piece.
When you clear enough of the board with no moves left, you will level up. Levelling will generate a new board and slow down the timer a bit. The game is over when you run out of space on the board. This mode encourages quick thinking and changing strategy on the fly.
DISCLAIMER:
The author deeply regrets that due to gameplay considerations MATCHY MATCHY is not representative of inter-species love. The author acknowledges that love knows no limits and no man, animal, machine, deity or other entity should attempt to impose such limits.
I was just about to write a very angry post but then I noticed the disclaimer. Good job.
Ooo, I like it!
Also, on a technical note, it's very clever to have the random twitches. A very inexpensive way to make the board feel alive. Nice touch!
This is a great game! The only comment I could make is maybe in time attack getting a match could push back the escalating speed up mechanic a bit so you have a chance to escape the death spiral
Oh and the way it progresses to the next level in puzzle mode even if you fuck it up and have animals left but no possible moves is confusing, I thought I was crushing it for the longest time before I realised if you clear it then the level has a heart
I finished it with hearts on all levels yesterday!
Are the levels generated randomly or is there some logic to it? I would have liked if the levels was a bit more puzzle-oriented, like on some levels there could be three of an animal and you'd have to clear up the other animals to be able to make a "triangle" and get rid of all three at the same time - and stuff like that.
Anyway, really loved this game!
Cheers!
@princess
In endless you can slow down the timer by levelling up. To level up you need to run out of moves when the board is almost empty.
@jayminer
Yeah the logic is that all levels are solvable, in the sense that every board can be 100% cleared. If you want to get a higher score then you can see how to work in the triangles and double dates etc into it. Originally I wanted to save scores per level but pico-8 has very little save data available.
But the levels are all generated, not handmade, and any problems to solve are emergent and as dependant on the moves you make as they are on the initial board layout.
Well this is just excellent!
Kudos to the pico-8 front page for unveiling this one to me today :D
Oh god it seems to be the same bot from https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=38875#p, what do we do just report it as spam?
Report as SPAM, @SmellyFishstiks. Reporting USED to be able to remove it right then and there. Suggest to @zep it at least hides it from the eyes of the person who marked it as SPAM if even to no-one else.
And raises a red light on his galactic console so he can hone in on where and who marked a message as SPAM - and determine if it is deserved or not.
Not to use a rude word or anything, @ilkke, but shouldn't this be something like an ORGY instead of just grabbing the 3-nearest dogs, instead grab every single matching dog for where the cursor is - in this case it looks like 6 ?
Oh, and giving you a gold star for this superb puzzle and matching game.
That beep sound when moving the cursor drives me crazy. Otherwise great game! <3
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