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SquareBots: Tiny Match 3x3 Rescue!'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun | #20 | 4.120 | 4.120 |
| Mechanics | #31 | 3.840 | 3.840 |
| Sound | #65 | 3.680 | 3.680 |
| Overall | #66 | 3.880 | 3.880 |
| Music | #135 | 3.560 | 3.560 |
| Story | #283 | 2.440 | 2.440 |
| Aesthetics | #386 | 3.240 | 3.240 |
| Theme | #455 | 2.840 | 2.840 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How many people worked on this game in total?
1
Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
See credits on page (and in game), specifically: bloodknight UI menu CC0 https://opengameart.org/content/pixel-robot CC0 https://freesound.org/people/Higgs01/sounds/430925/ yippee CC0 https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-7/ all the music Backgrounds: https://soundimage.org/images-home-page/
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Comments
Nicely done!
Cool project! I absolutely love those little bustling characters :D
Hey!
Nice game. Made my brain ache a little bit compared to some of the other entries, but there's nothing wrong with that. My brain probably needs the exercise anyway!
It's a fun puzzler, and the sound and clear effects are really enjoyable.
Nice concept, strong mechanics & well executed. Well done!
I look forward to seeing more from you in the future!
Liked the game! enjoyed it,Great job!
what a cool game. So glad it was posted up on the forums so I could find it. When there are over 1,000 games that have been submitted and I've been working my ass off just to rate about 5% of them (50 so far) its sometimes feels criminal that really good games can elude me and fly under the radar. There are games in the jam that have incredible graphics and UI's and loads of polish, but are boring. And then there are games like this which are just plain fun. I stopped at level 9. I loved the challenge and the combination of a sort of Tetris with minesweeper. I especially loved when you build up quite a big combo and it just explodes with noise and little critters. I thought that using 'saving them' as the score to get to the next level is totally innovative - I haven't seen it done like that before at least. I really, really, enjoyed this game. I would love to see it with a few more shapes - the shapes you've created are great, but chuck in some of those classic Tetris 't' and 'z' type shapes as well to give a bit more flexibility in how you build a block to blow-up. Loved it - fantastic work.
Thank you so much for the review! I agree on the criminality. I was even thinking of starting up a streaming channel just to play through the games in GDTV '25 (I've never done any streaming before). I'm sure my views would be measued in two digits but honestly I feel the games deserve their 'stories being told' in some digitally preserved way...
Re: the additional shapes, this was on my todo for the last day, but I bottled it. I'd had my crack team of playtesters (ahem, two good friends) playing it the day before the deadline and was afraid new shapes might introduce (more) bugs.
The T shape would be a game-changer and was present in the original game. As it stands I think the shape-roster is dancing a fine line between trolling and challenging :) I'm planning on cleaning the game up and remaking Squarez (and including my more relaxed spin on the game as presented here...)
In years gone by people have made YouTube videos and streamed themselves playing the jam games so its a bit of a pity that nobody in the community seems to have done that this year. I definitely would in the viewership of that kind of stream or video. I think the only challenge I had with your game was that it was a bit unreliable moving the shape with the mouse cursor (not sure if there's another way to do it that I just didn't think of) but other than that it was solid. I came up with a strategy to handle the shapes and once you understood the 3x3 nature of it I really wanted to focus on making the biggest explosions possible lol - and it was truly satisfying when I pulled that off haha. i'm telling creators of good games to consider web releases on platforms like crazygames where you can monetize them with ads if you're interested in that (an alternative for people that aren't trying to do a full Steam release). Your game would fit the model quite well with its sort of endless levels.
*Rolls up sleeves* All those hours playing tetris against my family has prepared me for this moment!
This is great. I could definitely see myself playing this for hours. I somehow made a big enough bang to knock me from level 6 all the way to 9, then bricked myself.
Really neat little block-em-up! Music and sound effects were perfect, and the little dudes are really neat to see. Very addictive and fun game, love it!
Probably the most satisfying game I've played so far!
well, i like that kind of games that can be played anywhere since i play similar games on my phone, i would deffinetly get this one on my phone and play it while on my way somewhere, it was pretty fun experince and great game, Good job!
Very satisfying and addicting, the sound effects and everything made blowing up blocks very rewarding. As others have said, being able to move the blocks through other place block would've been a nice feature.
Good job!
Nice puzzle game! I really liked the sound that the pieces make when dragged. It gives a nice tactile feel that is addicting! I also found the little guys to be rewarding. Two things that would make me play more would be:
1. To be able to get past the dropped pieces. If you block your entry it's game over, so you have to start at the other corner to have an advantage. Also there are spaces where a piece fits but can't go there!
2. I would have liked a grid background so that I can see more easily where a piece fits.
Great game for the jam! Loved the tiny robots! Have a nice day!
Very nice game. It took me a bit to figure out what I had to do but after I figured it out I really had fun playing. Also the progressive increase in difficulty is done well.
Very addictive and frustratingly difficult! It's like tetris, but not... very clever design! When you start getting to the blocks that can't be moved, my OCD brain found it frustrating that I had to leave them there - it would be nice if you could still get rid of them, but only with the bombs perhaps? Unless that's already the mechanic but I just suck that badly at playing it hehe!
Yes, level 2 is tricky but you are correct, from level 3 onwards that you get plenty of opportunities to get your revenge on them - and it's most satisfying!
Maybe you got a tough run on the RNG? I've had it happen before - some of the shapes are mean. So I'm considering fudging the RNG even more so the 'kinder' blocks spawn more often (actually I have 'staircase' and 'inverse staircase' shapes in my shapes.json to do that already). Those two fit together nicely.
Thanks for playing and hope you'll give it another shot as it opens up after the high explosives show up in level 3!
Oh yeah just wanted to make sure you knew about the rotate button. A buddy missed that and had a tough time until I told him...
oh yeah I could rotate! I did manage to get to level 3 but I accidentally placed a couple of blocks when I was intending to rotate and that kind of screwed it up a bit hehe
This is the jam game I've played by far the longest, so damn addictive. Nicely made and balanced. Five stars for fun and overall from me.
Only request is can you explain more about the rules on the grey and bomb blocks, I didn't fully understand them as the in-game text was too brief both in terms of detail and time on screen! Even though I didn't fully understand these I got to level 8.
Only other suggestion is can I restart from most recent level rather than level 1 if I fail
Thank you for the kind worlds! I agree on the harshness of the game overs... was just reflecting on some ways to make the game more friendly - just had a cute idea that the robots would deconstruct any blocks that were too close to the spawn point... With some penalty.
I think I was trying to stick to the original Squarez game concept too closely - it was very tough and even unfair at times (there are blocks that move the walls and make the board smaller!) and ones that create an iron cross of metal squares.
Also agree on the lack of explanation on the mechanics - I had a stretch goal to add tutorial sections but alas time caught up :) Thanks again, the feedback means a lot as I poured my heart into this one.
Really cool game. I enjoy tetris so this I really enjoyed. Great submission well done.
Cheers my man! I watched your stream upload - hope you'll give it another go - you were getting the hang of it. It's a blast if you play it like you said at the end by placing pieces more in the middle of the board than the edges - two of the 'staircase' shapes fit together easily!
I really enjoyed playing this. It was a great twist on Tetris-ish style games. Having the bigger space to place blocks in, matching up 3x3. Having the metal blocks and bombs etc to change things up added progression nicely.
I hadn't how I was getting to the next levels until a few levels in, and it was about the little dudes I was releasing :).
Main gameplay mechanic issue,.. having to go grab the block from its starting position,. made for some frustrating fails. evidently clicking to select it, and placing it there, ruined a couple of run throughs for me. Not sure how to resolve this fully, as I understand the issues with bringing it into the space. But somthing I felt frustrated by as a player.
But the longer runs I did have, I very much enjoyed! great job :)
Thanks for the feedback! So to start with I warped the cursor to the shape spawn point. However this is not allowed in webGL... Then I found that having the shape move immediately towards the cursor was a bit jarring. So the approach is that when the cursor is close to the shape it will 'pick it up' (no click required).
The above I'm still not fully happy with so I'll throw some time tonight into thinking about a solution as you rightly say it's too easy to accidentally gameover!
I didn't really know what I was doing most of the time. I mean, I understood the concept, but actually playing effectively was another matter. Fortunately the game is very forgiving, as long as I didn't place any blocks near the spawn point (or IN the spawn point) I had enough room to push through the levels. :)
Thank you so much for your comment! My last Saturday was basically making the placement more forgiving. Prior to that, clicking anywhere, even outside the board would place a piece... This meant losing focus on the window was very dangerous (now it autopauses). That said, these fixes added a couple more bugs (the shape shouldn't move until the player grabs it!!).
I hope to fix this tonight now my mind is fresher :) thanks again.
if you click to drag the piece at the beginning you loose. it took a lot of trial an error till I found out that bombs destroys metal. I dont know that the little guys are for.
Thank you for your comment! Yes I had more plans for the little robot dudes, but had to focus on fixing the movement bugs (boring but important). Perhaps I can stop clicking and dragging from doing a place operation...
My feeling: Use dragging, as in drag and drop. You can make it more complex, the pieces may come out from different "holes" in the wall, not just down, so you have to build things in a way that you have passages to reach from each hole.
If you try the game on mobile that's actually how the controls work. Although you need to be able to rotate before placing so simple dragging and dropping wouldn't work...
Unless I make the player hold the left mouse button while hitting right to rotate... Could work?!
You drag and drop, as usual, if another "touch" is detected, you rotate. The problem in the mobile is that the finger will "cover" the piece. So you have to drag and draw the piece with some "offset from the finger".
Ok this hit the itch in my brain, spent 10 minutes on it before i even felt like I had blinked. Also, the popping noise gets /really/ loud when you pop a massive chunk. Ouch. Loved it so much!
Glad you had fun! Sorry about the loud noises, this is one of my things... (2021 gamejam was even noisier). Actually I have a routine to limit the movement sounds, I'll add that to the bombs too.
Cute little guys popping out is fin, wish they would stay and run around more. Pretty cute. Fun game, did run into some bugs with placing the blocks in the beginning of the level and failing it instantly. Also placed some block in between levels when the Level was loading, so I had an extra block on screen.