Couple of matching games

Played a couple of matching games today because I saw one in the Big Fish Games top 10 list, which is highly unusual these days due to the prevalence of Hidden Object, Adventure and cutesy sim/time management games. Not many people are making match-3s these days and when they come out they normally don't do that well. Other matching type games (often with a unique twist) don't seem to do that well either - are casual game players fed up with grid after grid of little shapes and meaningless meta-games I wonder?...

I used to be really up-to-date with all the match-3 games about a year or so ago because I've actually made four and so I used to try to play as many good ones as I could for research. However, I've not played any for about a year so today's little foray was interesting.

Caribbean Hideaway

First up I played Caribbean Hideaway which is the game currently in the BFG top 10. It's pirate-themed so zero points for originality there then.

It's a match-3, but not of the usual type where you click and drag an item to match 3 or more horizontally or vertically. Instead your mouse cursor is an item and you have to "swap" it for another item anywhere on the grid to match 3 or more items, and then your mouse cursor changes to the item you picked up - rince and repeat. I first saw this mechanic in Treasure Island quite some time ago (good game btw). This certainly adds a different kind of playing strategy to the normal match-3 mechanic, however I found it took me longer to make matches than with the normal match-3 mechanic.

Also the game itself seemed a little on the slow slide - the sliding shapes, the particle effects etc (which sometimes obscure the gameplay) - it could do with a little speed boost. Some graphical elements aren't finished brilliantly (like the men on the unoriginal "build stuff on your island" metagame which Cradle of Rome first introduced I think). The game has different objectives for each level (like swab the decks, fight pirates, find treasure etc), which is OK, and naturally you get different bonus items that you can power up by making matches).

Overall, it's pretty good, reasonably well polished, popular subject matter and you may well enjoy it - so check it out. I played 8 levels in 30 mins (BFG doesn't say how many levels there are) and enjoyed myself. I'll be watching this one to see how long it stays in the top 10 for.

Age of Emerald

At first I thought Age of Emerald was a match-3 based on the screenshots, but it's not, it's a Magic Match clone. You have a grid of items and you must drag the cursor to draw a line over 3 or more matching pieces and then they disappear. This mechanic turned out to be fast to play which I liked and the particle effects were good.

Again the metagame consists of building a little village from resources you gather in-game and the buildings give you different powers in the game - standard fare. The music was a bit repetitive but OK, the only issue is that the matching sound effect goes up in pitch like a piano scale - this was fine with the first music but didn't fit so well with the second music. Also the background didn't change for quite a few levels which I think is a mistake.

However, I enjoyed the fast paced playing and recommend that you check it out (otherwise I wouldn't be writing about it). I'll be interested to see if this one makes it into the top 10 with it's slightly different subject matter and different matching mechanic (it probably won't).

If you've played any decent match-3 or similar type games recently, then please let me know and I'll check them out. Thanks.