September’s One Game a Month entry is a clone of the NES game Yoshi.
Download Hextrap for Linux 64-bit (410 kb tar.gz file)
I’ve never made a falling block puzzle game before. I had more ambitious plans, but with ISVCon 2013 taking up a lot of my time, I ended up doing most of my game development hours on the four planes I rode to and from Reno, Nevada.
I started out with creating the four stack platforms, and a swapper which the player controls.
I created shapes to act as the various pieces: circles, triangles, squares, and pentagons. Hexagons were special. If a top hexagon piece is over a bottom hexagon piece, the pieces in the middle were consumed and the player got bonus points.
I think what put this project in jeopardy was that I wanted some particle effects. It didn’t take long to implement, but I could have spent my precious time on the game play.
But it came together quite well, even if I think it feels kind of hacked together at times.
I think the only thing missing is an issue involving the interaction of a swapping stack that is higher than a falling piece. Right now, the falling piece stacks on top, whereas it should flip around to a different stack.
Oh, and sound effects and music would be nice.
The scoring is also much simpler than in the original game.
Enjoy!