This weekend I’m working on a game for the Ludum Dare 48 hour game making competition. The theme is ‘alone’, which initially sounded pretty gloomy to me – so I’m making something as bright and colourful as possible.
My initial idea was to reverse the classic puzzle game mechanic of matching things of the same colour, and make the goal to split colours up instead. I realised in the shower (where all my best thinking is done) that as a never-ending puzzle game (like Bejeweled or Puyo Puyo), the mechanic would be pretty limited. Clearing individual blocks presents very few chaining opportunities, and I think would get pretty messy.
I’m now doing something quite similar in structure to the great Clockwiser. It’s predefined puzzles, but the same goal – stop all blocks of the same colour from touching each other.
It’s going well so far. The main remaining tasks are progression through the game, audio, and more levels.