Game Idea A Week: Snowflake Matching
Week Five (04/11/2009)
The Idea for this week is a simple Flash game where participants must find pairs of matching snowflakes based on shape or colour.
Platform:
PC or XBox Arcade
Why it needs to be made:
This game encourages people not to always look for the same types of matches, and will therefore train the brain to be able to be more dynamic.
Description:
The main screen is a set of 6*6 tiles showing snowflakes in different shapes and colours. The player needs to match pairs based on shape or on colour, depending on which phase of the game is active. After a certain number of matches, the phase will automatically switch from matching shapes to colours and vice versa. As the game progresses through levels, the player is forced to switch more quickly.
The aim of the game is to clear all tiles from the screen. When stuck (i.e. no matches can be made, or the player can't see them), the player has a number of "change tile" credits so that they can change a tile on screen. The computer will randomly generate a new tile to go in that place. The player earns "change tile" credit points by correctly matching other tiles, and gets bonuses if two tiles match exactly (both colour and shape). The game finishes when the player cannot make any more matches and they have no "change tile" credits left. If the player removes all tiles from the screen, they are given a bonus of points and "change tile" credits, then a new set of tiles are randomly generated.
Why it will be a compelling game:
Being forced to switch between matching shapes to matching colours will challenge players to always keep thinking and not "switch off" their brains. When the game finishes, the player will always think they could have done better by choosing different matches, being more frugal with the "change tile" credits and so on. This means the player will want to play again to improve their score.
Other thoughts:
This game has now been implemented. Check out the demo page to download it and to see the code.