Matchy Star™ Match-Them-All™
Matchy Star™ is not a single-dimensional match 3, it has multiple elements – even from different genres. There is a lot to talk about when it comes to Matchy Star™ game design.
Artists are known to be inspired by other artists, regardless of their different work stages. They learn from each other, from techniques, styles all the way down to influences. When we work on processing our ideas, we often become attuned to experiences and practices that we have been exposed to before.
Our unique artistic vision is often the sum up of our experiences and passion, something that grows with time, challenging the notion of what is construed as original. The capacity to think independently and creatively is key to creating distinguishable work from others. Originality has always something that Silverware Games has thrived for, at least finding ways to give personality to the work done. In order to find fresh ideas, it takes some game design work.
After some soul searching trying to find originality, here are some general ideas for how we found our own creative process:
1.- Research What Inspires You.
The original idea for Matchy Star’s™ character came from references such as Johnny Bravo, emoji, and games like Advance Wars. Exploring brands that would represent joy, happiness, and fun and how the whole experience would have personality on itself is part of how we establish a creative direction. By understanding what is already out there in the industry we find what could we possible do to contribute and stand out on our own.
2.- Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone.
The first I did for Matchy Star™ was the design of the original character Matchy himself. We often think of the gameplay first rather than characters, so this was a challenge. Nothing was set on stone at first, but after researching brands and characters, I had established the direction for the star. Then I did a mockup to try to convey the emotions and personality of Matchy which was still quite rough and unpolished but good enough to set the tone for the project. The idea for a cute, derpy, enthusiastic star turned out to be the heart of a world that continued to grow throughout development.
3.- Redefine Execution and Communication.
The first iteration of Matchy Star™ felt somewhat like Candy Crush, and clearly that wasn’t the goal because the idea was to craft an original experience. After many iterations the game was interesting enough to bring more people on to the project to expand its design scope. The team had some aesthetic suggestions, along with game design ideas and that’s when Jimp (From Massive Monsters), came along. He ended up giving the stars a lot of their texture and professional polish improving the brand overall.
Fast-forward to now, and Matchy Star™ has become a new take on Match 3’s. It is now a Match-Them-All which became the heart of an entire franchise.
Designing Matchy Star™
It only took about a week to get the basic match 3 game running with the spacey shapes I had originally designed, but game did not have enough personality yet. The bulk of the game’s strategy relied on lucking out and getting a good board placement which didn’t feel all that enjoyable or new.
I made a version of the game that strategically placed new gems based on how the board is laid out, it still just didn’t feel interesting enough. After letting some time pass, I thought about more games like Lemmings and Chu Chu rocket to draw from, and finally I added another layer of gameplay to Matchy Star™ making it an interesting ‘Match-Them-All.’ Thinking about games with characters floating around that you could not control directly, I added in a UFO to float around the match 3 board.
This UFO started out as a bit of a butt, mostly being annoying and getting in the way. After a few more iterations I changed the UFO to collect matches instead of act as an obstacle which made the game more fun right away. The UFO would collect more fuel for each match it picked up and there were many of them floating around randomly. But after showing the game, everyone was confused because the UFOs were still too unpredictable. That’s when I decided to make the UFOs run on a set path so players could anticipate where they would be going to make matches. The UFO became 3 ships, Zippy, Skippy, and Bob with faces so you can tell which direction they are going in the final version.
In Matchy Star™, it is possible to move pieces around unlike other match 3’s. It is not about matching a set number of matches to get through the level. Instead it is about doing the massive matches on the ship’s path, and keeping up the ship’s fuel which is what determines if you make it through the level. It is not a linear swap and match. Instead, it is a puzzle to optimize the best way to match given the grid opportunities per level and the paths that the ships will travel on. These design choices make Matchy Star™ a challenge that demands skills, rather than luck.
It is not a single-dimensional match 3, it has multiple elements – even from different genres. There are advancements that come with content, from the typical bonuses and itemization, all the way to clicker mechanics to interact with the game differently. The process is still on-going, we continue to tweak and work on the different layers fleshing out ideas till the game feels as fun as it gets. Matchy Star™ is still in development and we will share more design notes and news soon.
