Suit Yourself by cassowary

[raw]
made by cassowary for Ludum Dare 59 (COMPO)

Hi! I am super time constrained this weekend (I'm on a road trip and was only able to work on this on and off), so I wasn't able to put together my full usual thing. However, I was able to make this little project in about 12 hours. It's a bit different from what I normally make, and it might be a little rough around the edges, but I hope people will be able to enjoy regardless. :)

Also, this doesn't have much to do with "signal". My initial idea was that it's like sending a signal from one matching tile to another, via the tiles that are similar in between... but it kind of got away from the theme in the end. Ah, well.

edit: Sorry that I wasn't able to provide very many ratings this round. I've been out of town for most of the rating period and haven't had time to play through submissions. I feel bad that I got enough ratings to qualify anyway. :( Next time!!

Ratings

Overall 54th 3.87⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Fun 28th 3.913⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 128th 3.457⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Theme 285th 1.841⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 154th 3.457⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Audio 55th 3.739⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Humor 200th 1.929⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 188th 3.239⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Given 1🗳️ 1🗨️

Feedback

Roroto Sic
Apr 19th · 08:14 UTC
A fantastic game ! A very clever approach to the match 3 genre !
very polished (beautifull visually and audibly) !
Truly impressive for such a short period of time.

my hs :
![Capture d’écran 2026-04-19 100838.jpg](///raw/d93/94/z/7004b.jpg)
debugman18
Apr 19th · 19:43 UTC
Really fun match 3 game. Pleasant art and music. It doesn't have much to do with the theme, as noted, but it's a solid entry.
mdotedot
Apr 19th · 20:39 UTC
That is a lovely designed game. Well made. The music is stunning. Controls are smooth and fun. Excellent work!
Paroxysmal
Apr 20th · 03:28 UTC
Well done.
kanity
Apr 20th · 11:00 UTC
This is actually rather satisfying, I wouldn't expect such enjoyable and polished game in just 12 hours! It feels good to make combinations, and time limit gives more incentive to play and try several times. The melody is nice and simple, though I can imagine it can get tiring with time just like most simple melodies. I think the most important thing is that it is satisfying to make combos (the sound, how they disappear, all combined)! I like how I can do just 2 of them and make combos not just in straight line but in any direction :)

My best score is 00157400 so far. I swear I tried my best xD

Also, my brain is still mushy after finishing up my own compo game late into the night so maybe I have misunderstood something, but sometimes matching diff colours (of same suit) works and sometimes it doesn't. I physically can't hit screenshot while selecting tiles but I've circled the examples where it did NOT work in SAI:

![cassowary.jpg](///raw/c93/65/z/708eb.jpg)

![cassowary2.jpg](///raw/c93/65/z/708ec.jpg)
🎤 cassowary
Apr 20th · 13:21 UTC
@kanity, do you mean that it won't let you drag across the boundary here, or that selecting this group won't clear it? These groups won't clear because the ends are two different colors, but if you can't drag from one to the other over the color boundary, that would be a bug that I haven't seen...
kanity
Apr 20th · 14:44 UTC
@cassowary Sorry I think my brain was def too mushy. I felt like I did read about it having to end on the same colour but didn't quite get it at the moment. I was talking about the group not clearing, because as I understood I can make combos with diff colours, but now that I think about it, those which did work were the ones that ended on the initial colour @_@
🎤 cassowary
Apr 20th · 18:18 UTC
@kanity no problem, the rule is definitely a little confusing and I didn't have time to make a tutorial or anything, so it's understandable confusion lol
squimmy
Apr 21st · 02:04 UTC
Great stuff. It took me a little while to realise that tiles didn't have to all be connected in a straight line, but once I worked that out it became a lot more fun.
fusionnist
Apr 21st · 02:54 UTC
This is good! Congrats on pulling it off with limited time - let me see what I can score, now... :)
fusionnist
Apr 21st · 03:05 UTC
![hs.png](///raw/ce9/2/z/71c4d.png)

... and here's something decent!
LeReveur
Apr 21st · 20:02 UTC
Well, I would _love_ to finish something this polish in so few time! :open_mouth:
You are amazing, you know that?!
yopox
Apr 21st · 22:35 UTC
I loved it :) The concept is very addictive!

![CleanShot 2026-04-22 at 00.27.20@2x.png](///raw/741/8/z/7227b.png)
LDJam user 243193
Apr 22nd · 08:50 UTC
Nice block clearing game! I guess it has nothing to do with signals at all.
But it was fun playing it.
One funny thing is my first try has the highest score despite not knowing how X and ? works.
mahalis
Apr 22nd · 13:03 UTC
This is great! It’s a clever twist on the genre—reminds me a little of Grindstone, which I played a ridiculous amount of back in the day, and I could spend a ton of time with this as well. The art’s simple but polished and appealing, and the music does a nice job of setting the mood (and doesn’t feel repetitive, which is always the problem I have with making game music). Super impressive for 12 hours’ work. Well done!
graebor
Apr 22nd · 14:13 UTC
Really liked this! It's an excellent result for only 12 hours :open_mouth: I enjoyed figuring out how the ? blocks work - the fact that they can only be used in the middle adds some nice depth, and the result is a board you actually have to analyze a bit instead of just scanning for obvious groups of duplicates. And I can see how with more time you probably _could_ have integrated the theme like you mention - but it's fun regardless :)
Nozomu57
Apr 22nd · 19:23 UTC
I got to a new color right before game over, yay!

![Screenshot 2026-04-22 at 21.22.07.png](///raw/749/65/z/7257a.png)

Was actually quite fun, didn't expect that!
LDJam user 278146
Apr 24th · 07:13 UTC
Very impressed with this given how little you had to work on it! I really like the mechanic with the black squares getting in the way but also giving a bonus when you clear them.

![chrome_BryXDkPg0b.png](///raw/28e/34/z/728c4.png)
Aurel300
Apr 24th · 14:17 UTC
Cute puzzle! Love that it feels relatively polished, given how simple it is/how little time you had to work on it. Like the bassy thumps of the blocks landing on the field (: I think it would be nice to colour the chain a different colour when a match is "legal"? Oh and I noticed that holding the start of a chain (legal or not) pauses the timer, which can easily be abused ^^
LDJam user 372231
Apr 24th · 15:22 UTC
New record's in town😎
![Снимок экрана 2026-04-24 в 18.19.16.png](///raw/70e/a5/z/7294f.png)

Honestly, this is a really great game. Yes, it may not be the strongest match for the theme 😄 but! you created something genuinely fun and enjoyable to play, with a nice balance between stress and relaxation.

I can totally see this working well as a mobile game. Great job!!!
Jimbly
Apr 27th · 20:00 UTC
![Screenshot 2026-04-27 125801.png](///raw/dd3/z/72f16.png)

Solid game! I played for a while. Made it to 4.6M points. I noticed the timer stopped when I started dragging, which meant I basically had infinite time, so just let the timer run out when I got bored. Stopping the timer was probably a good choice, despite that, as the game'd probably just be more frustrating if time ran out mid-swiped (I guess maybe just slowing it down / not letting it run out, as long as you managed to make a swipe would be a reasonable compromise). I seemed to get _way_ more points per second at the beginning (when there were just 2 colors) than later - so though that felt like a good difficulty ramp, it discouraged me realizing it was very difficult to keep getting lots of points. I spent all of my lighting bolts at the end to build up a couple really big combos to make up the difference though, and that was fun (but I'm not sure I would have spent them except that I'd decided I was going to let the timer run out...).
Jeremy Ryan
May 07th · 04:29 UTC
Nice work for such a short time!

![Screenshot 2026-05-06 205706.png](///raw/aba/3/z/7329d.png)

So I had a whole review written up about how much of a hard time I was having, but then I realized I missed the part that you could build your chains across colors (via connected suits), and immediately beat my high score. I guess it helps to read the directions!

This was a nice twist on the Match-3 genre, and I liked how puzzly it was with the optimal routing while still being an arcade game and not a puzzle game. I think the one thing that feels missing is the satisfying automatic daisy-chain of combos you sometimes get in Match-3, since you have to clear all the tiles yourself (with the exception of the black ones when they hit the bottom). But there was enough satisfaction to be had with the connecting mechanic.

I've crunched the numbers and decided to award you this *Smoothest Transition From Gameplay To Game Over Music Award*. It really just kind of blended right together. Congratulations!

![you_lose_winner.png](///raw/aba/3/z/7329e.png)