Comments on: Swap Adjacent Gems to Make Sets of Three: A History of Matching Tile Games

By: Gronk

Gronk — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:41:31 +0000

I can understand your reasoning and accept it, but grudgingly, since it’s not fair. Just because it offers one of the most creative twists doesn’t mean it’s right to evict it from its rightful genre. Don’t you also control the frog in Zuma? And they’re not even tiles!

Otherwise, it’s a very nice article. I wish you’d also do histories of other genres.

P.S. I’d also like to point out http://aluminumangel.org/attack/ which is not just a competent clone – it offers a significant twist gameplaywise.

By: Jesper

Jesper — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:01:56 +0000

Gronk, I don’t consider Mr. Driller a matching tile game. I see why you would argue that it is, but my focus is on games where you do not control a character, but rather manipulate _the tiles_.

By: Gronk

Gronk — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:55:32 +0000

A nice article, but you missed an entire series, spanning a decade and about ten platforms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Driller

It (any of the games from the series) also has some very interesting gameplay and allows (demands!) you to develop some crazy skills in order to complete it. But it’s all about matching tiles, no doubt about that.

By: Kevin Bjorke

Kevin Bjorke — Tue, 29 May 2007 22:53:51 +0000

I can’t find a citation on the web, but recall that I got this infomation from the BBC documentary on the creation of Tetris, “From Russia with Love”:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3479989.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/tetris.shtml

it has cropped up in the US on LinkTV.com

Pajitnov has also cited pentominos as another inspiration

By: Jesper

Jesper — Fri, 25 May 2007 10:40:58 +0000

I see what you mean about connect four, but I have never heard this cited as a source of inspiration. Do you have a source for it?

See for example: http://vadim.oversigma.com/Tetris.htm

By: Kevin Bjorke

Kevin Bjorke — Thu, 24 May 2007 22:09:27 +0000

Wasn’t Tetris, in turn, inspired as a video-game departure from “Connect Four,” which had been played at least since its release in 1974?

By: Jesper

Jesper — Tue, 22 May 2007 12:41:29 +0000

grid, thanks, I saw the discussion on indie gamer.

Feel free to make your own tree of course. Be warned: no tree will make everybody happy!

The arrows informally mean that a game inherits _most of _ the game mechanics from the game above it, with the innovations listed with “+” to the side.

As mentioned in the article, I focused on four different aspects of puzzle mechanics: timed vs. non-timed, ways of manipulating tiles, matching criteria, and matches required.

I did develop a program that allowed you to switch between many of these variations as part of the prototyping for a casual game that is coming out this week. Will post.

By: grid

grid — Mon, 21 May 2007 06:35:55 +0000

There is a thread about this article over on the indiegamer forum, just FYI.

http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?p=132178

I also posted a link and list a few other games notably excluded from your article on my site. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to take a stab at my own version of your “match three family tree”. I wonder, when you created the tree, did you list out the game mechanics you felt each game was “inheriting”? I think a comprehensive list of puzzle game mechanics would be an incredibly interesting read and valuable resource. I’d love to hear your thoughts on such a list.

By: n.n

n.n — Mon, 14 May 2007 02:17:40 +0000

I think Tetris and Puzzle Fighter are substantially different beasts from Puzzle Quest, because those games play out on two separate boards with relatively low interaction – i.e. one player’s success directly parlays into the other’s failure (by sending junk objects, etc).

Puzzle Quest is mechanically quite different, since it’s turn-based and both players are manipulating the same board and set of tokens (so they can attempt to block or forestall each other’s moves, or potentially set up a good move for their opponent by accident!).

And you’re quite right that the individual puzzles in Puzzle Pirates aren’t mechanically different from their counterparts such as Puzzle Fighter (etc): mea culpa.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 12 May 2007 21:43:26 +0000

I wonder, Jesper, if you do read Marshall Mcluhan. Do you use his theories with your game studies?