Gamelogic
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Tools
    • Grids 2 (for Unity)
      • Features
      • Documentation
    • Grids 1 (Legacy, for Unity)
      • 30 games in 30 days
      • Features
      • Tutorials, Documentation, and FAQ
      • Games made with Grids for Unity
      • Examples
      • What is new?
      • Grid Prototypes and Previews
      • Buy
    • Extensions
    • Colors
      • Features
      • Documentation and tutorials
      • Buy
    • Words
      • Features
      • Documentation
      • Buy
    • Abstract Strategy
      • Features
      • Documentation and tutorials
      • Examples
      • Buy
    • Match
      • Features
    • Grids (for GameMaker)
      • 30 games in 30 days
      • Features
      • Documentation
      • Buy
  • Buy
  • Articles
  • Support
    • Knowledge Base
    • Email Support
  • About
    • Meet our team

Blog

Match Game Mechanics: An exhaustive survey

^E591993BBB79FA9610A0C515B2C36E90E603227735739C218C^pimgpsh_fullsize_distrAt Gamelogic we are obsessed with game rules.

Several weeks ago Herman and I began building a match game tool. We played and analyzed many match games to deconstruct their mechanics. In this Gamasutra article we share our findings as part of a larger research and development project, which will later include an article on match game implementation patterns.

During our research we found many games with similar features to match games. By changing how we define a match rule it is possible to include a wider variety of games for which our scheme can be applied. However, we decided against including match rules that are not intuitively associated with match games to keep our task manageable. How far our definitions can be stretched is something we want to explore in the future.

For this document, we only include match games that are played on a grid, are 2D, and are on a single layer. Some 3D games (for instance Blockout) easily fall into our scheme if certain concepts are adapted for 3D.

In his paper Swap Adjacent Gems to Make Sets of Three, Jesper Juul defines matching tile games as“video games where the object of the player is to manipulate tiles on a grid in order to create matches”(We give a more precise definition below to suit our terminology and structure we use here.)

Juul says that one of the challenges that designers face is that casual gamers want to pick up and play these games immediately. There must be a level of familiarity without a steep learning curve. At the same time, games need to have enough uniqueness to stand out from the competition, and more importantly, enough to keep the player playing their game. Often these differences are subtle, such as Bejeweled introducing a timeless mode to its predecessors.

Because of this, the evolution of match games has occurred more incrementally than some other types of games, and it has resulted in many similar games (often labeled clones). More importantly for us, it makes match games easier to analyze than many other game genres.

Read the full artcle on Gamasutra 

Check out our infographic of Match Game Mechanics 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Related

  1. Match Game Mechanics  This example shows how to implement basic matching mechanics. It...
  2. Day 13 Game 13: 30 games in 30 days using Grids  In Game 13 you have to slide the rows in...
  3. Day 10 Game 10: 30 games in 30 days using Grids  To win game 10, you have to block all the...
  4. Day 18 Game 18: 30 games in 30 days using Grids for GameMaker  Developer: Robert Bogle (Microsoft AppFactory) Game 18, or Flipex, is a...
  • Permalink
  • Posted: 2 March 2015
  • Tags: 3D unity game, game design, match game mechanics
  • Comments: 2
  • Author: Jonathan Bailey

Comments (2)

  1. Jan

    3 March 2015 at 14:52

    Great work, but I think the player action breakdown is missing a variant. Check out Mario & Yoshi (Yoshi in the US) for the NES, which has a nice twist with the column swapping. It also adds the special mechanic with the egg halves.

    • Jonathan Bailey

      20 May 2015 at 09:39

      Hi Jan, thanks for your feedback. Those are two
      great additions! I have updated our article. If you would like, send me your
      full name so that I can add you as a contributor. jonathan@gamelogic.co.za

Comments are closed.

Recent Posts
  • Tool Documentation Overhaul
  • What is new in Grids Pro 2.3.5
  • What is new in Grids Pro 2.3.2
  • What is new in Abstract Strategy 2.1.1
  • What is new in Words 2.0.2
Categories
  • 30 Games in 30 Days
  • AbstractStrategy
  • Aside
  • Colors
  • Example
  • Extensions
  • General
  • Grids
  • Grids 2
  • Previews
  • Programming
  • Social Media
  • Uncategorized
  • Words
Follow us on Twitter
My Tweets
Meta
  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org
  • Home
  • Features
  • Blog
  • About
  • 14 Eglin Road, Sunninghill, Johannesburg, South Africa
  • support@gamelogic.co.za
Stay Connected
  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Linkedin
  • Rss
  • Twitter
  • Gamelogic © 2013