Match Racer
=== WEB VERSION README ===
Please use the fullscreen option (the icon in the lower right corner) when playing the game in the browser. Best with a 16:9/16:10 screen resolution. For the absolute best experience, please use the download versions available here on this page.
========= About the Game ========
In Match Racer, you race. And you play Match3. And it is turn based. And it is a lot of fun!
To gain actions for your racecar, you play three rounds of match3 first. After that, it is time to hit the track and try not to crash into the walls. Once you are out of actions, you go back to the match3 part. Also, there are boosts for the racing part you can get by clearing four or more tiles in the match3.
========= How To Play ==========
The whole game is mouse controlled. In the match3 part, you click one tile in the center of the track, and then an adjacent tile to make the tiles swap places. If after the swap three or more tiles of the same type are adjacent in a straight line, they will be deleted. You will get one car action for three deleted tiles. If you manage to clear four or more tiles in one turn, you will get a boost according to the type of tile you cleared.
After three turns, the game switches to the race car. Here, you pilot your car by selecting one of 9 available positions. The car will now drive to this position. To increase speed, select one of the three positions on the far side of the car. To brake, select one the three positions near the car. To steer, select either the left or the right positions. The speed of the car is retained between turns, which means you should brake before a corner to not overshoot it.
The game ends when you have completed a lap.
There is also a tutorial available ingame, just click the tutorial button from the menu or click the question mark icon in the upper right side of your screen.
======== Music and Sound Effects ========
If you do not like the music and / or the sound effects, you can turn them off in the Options. Press Escape or click the menu icon in the upper right side to open the Menu. Then click Options. You will see two sliders, one for sound effects and one for music. These values will be saved between game sessions.
======== Feedback ========
If you have feedback or found a bug, please leave a comment here or on the itch.io page, or tweet me at @dievo.
======== Bugs =========
There should not be any major bugs left, but if you find one, please let me know.
A Ludum Dare 41 Compo entry. The game was made by Thomas Diehl in 48 hours. If you like it (or don’t) please leave a comment
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Comments
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I like that game. Turn-based racing is an interesting concept to me and this game enhances it with the boosts from Match3. The Match3 part isn't as fun, but it has its place there because it generates turns and boosts.
The Match3 part needs to be redesigned, because some symbols are hard to distinguish, especially the flags. The game needs multi-lap races, otherwise, there is no point in that the track is a circuit. It needs also more tracks, larger tracks, and better opponents; the hard one wasn't hard IMO. If you create a game that is like this but larger, I will play it.
This is actually a pretty cool game! I am starting to grasp what all the stats (sort of mean), but wish there was some clarity over this. Maybe it is deliberate, so that it feels like actually driving a car at high speeds with some level of uncertainty.
I think that the car can be driven with a lot of certainty. The driving is on a coarse grid with the speed on each axis independent, so it's quite easy to calculate the stopping distance on each axis and the optimal trajectory in the next few turns.
That's in contrast with a turn-based racing game not on a coarse grid, like Turn Based Racing, which is much harder because counting squares isn't possible and the shape of the possible positions in the next turn is quite irregular there.