LudumData

Tetromatcher by Alchemic

[raw]
made by Alchemic for LD 42 (JAM)

Tetromatcher is a block-stacking game which features elements of Tetris and color-matching puzzle games.

Post your highscores!

Controls

Move left/right: arrow left/right Fast drop: arrow down Rotate right: space, X, F Rotate left: Z, W, Y, Q

Rules

Basic Tetris rules apply, with weaker scoring to encourage use of color matching chains.

Matching 4 or more of one color clears only those blocks, and applies gravity only to the columns that were occupied. Clearing a group of blocks counts as clearing a line, with the score scaling based on the number of blocks in the group.

Chain reactions start a combo multiplier, which resets at the end of the chain. Chains give more points than simply clearing lines.

Speed increases with lines cleared.

No advanced Tetris scoring is present (e.g. back-to-backs, T-spins, etc.).

tetromatcher.png

Source code https://github.com/apples/LD42
HTML5 (web) https://alchemical.itch.io/tetromatcher
Windows https://alchemical.itch.io/tetromatcher
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/tetromatcher

Ratings

Overall 876th 3.125⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 619th 3.2⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1219th 2.3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 838th 3.2⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1064th 2.619⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Audio 596th 2.875⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 17🗳️ 5🗨️

Feedback

torcado
13. Aug 2018 · 08:49 UTC
interesting take on tetris. i ended up just ignoring the match-3 entirely, it didn't prove very useful, or at least as useful as normal tetris clears. maybe if more (or all) of the blocks were colored, it would add more to the strategy.

other than that, the game runs fine and is fun to play. nice job :grin:
Gizmolo
14. Aug 2018 · 01:54 UTC
Wow this is a tricky game! I wish there was a line connecting each block to the tetromino they belonged too. It *seems* like you need to leverage those connections in order to get a chain going, but I'll be honest, I was having trouble just getting a single combo chain. Oh well, I'll try again later. All in all, great job!
Ashment
14. Aug 2018 · 02:28 UTC
Solid Tetris clone, with mechanics that raise the skill ceiling. Good stuff.
Jeremy Ryan
14. Aug 2018 · 03:08 UTC
oh no

![tetro.JPG](///raw/aba/3/z/18d5b.jpg)
crazi456
14. Aug 2018 · 03:20 UTC
I love tetris! Was pretty tough trying to get combos. I had fun though :D
🎤 Alchemic
14. Aug 2018 · 04:11 UTC
@jeremy-ryan Oh no! Can you tell me your operating system, browser version, and what GPU you have?

There are native builds for Windows available on the itch.io page.
AzStrocyte
14. Aug 2018 · 04:18 UTC
I think it's hard to see the colored blocks vs the non-colored ones they're all too similiar on brightness/contrast.
I liked it, it's fun and i like the sfx !
joh
14. Aug 2018 · 05:29 UTC
Good play on tetris, works well, quite fun.
A bad play held me back, but the color matching allowed me to hold one way longer than I had any right to.
Good stuff!
Angela K.
14. Aug 2018 · 09:15 UTC
I had some trouble moving pieces where I needed them. When I hit left or right, I would frequently move more than one space. I ended up getting the hang of the controls, but they still felt slippery. I like where you were going with the color combining, but I felt more compelled to make lines than to match colors. Maybe add more color to the blocks, then I would get more chances to use the color.
SuperQGS
15. Aug 2018 · 00:44 UTC
Reminds me a bit of Dr.Mario on the NES. Solid game, rather challenging.
Gizmolo
16. Aug 2018 · 02:08 UTC
Ok I've revisited your game and I'm finally getting the hang of the combo system. It definitely takes a new line of thinking playing tetris this way! I wish you could save a piece or at least see what the next piece is going to be, but you probably purposefully left that out since you already have the added benefit of the extra tetromino busting system. Also, this is the first time in any tetris game I've seen where spinning an "O" piece actually matters haha. 5 stars for innovation!!
FireSlash
18. Aug 2018 · 06:18 UTC
As someone who's played a lot of tetris, it's hard for me to understand why I'd want the match 3 mechanic. It largely just messes with my stacking and creates more problems than it solves. Once I realized this, I began mostly worrying about accidentally creating a match 3, which seems like a bad mechanic.

Other than that, it's tetris. The basic boxes are all checked, and if nothing else I applaud you for trying something new and interesting in a space that you'd think would have been fully explored by now.

Play around with the mechanic a bit! I suspect if you make match3s more reliable and easy to obtain, they could be useful in solving some of the placement problems currently solved by intentionally bad stacks, or problems that require t-slide/etc.
smuhlaci
19. Aug 2018 · 08:36 UTC
I couldn't play on OS X, WebGL.
BluShine
19. Aug 2018 · 08:59 UTC
Interesting take on Tetris.

It felt very hard to set-up interesting combos with the color-match system. I think part of this is just due to the layout of each piece. Each tetromino seems to have one 1 possible color scheme, and half of the pixels are neutral gray which blocks combos. So, even if you can set-up a color combo, it can't be combo'd into a chain that clears all the blocks like the combos in most Match-3, Puyo-Puyo, Puzzle Bobble, and similar combo-based puzzle games games. Also, the tetris inputs was missing a "hard-drop" button.

The audio was nice, but the music was a bit too short.
HIM
19. Aug 2018 · 09:38 UTC
Basicly just tetris...
10350 score
(while doing this i didnt even know about the color matching)
Rosden
02. Sep 2018 · 12:29 UTC
I had fun. I haven't tetris that much so I didn't really get the combo system. But solid work