Let's talk about match-3 games

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I'm a big fan of match-3 puzzle games, but I'm disappointed with the lack of innovation in this genre. On mobile, almost all the games are exactly the same, just with a different theme, and on Steam, well, the vast majority are not Safe For Work.

Sweet Dreams Cafe Sweet Dreams Cafe

The mechanics

Matching rows of 4 or 5 gems to create power-ups is a key mechanic of all these games, and if you're savvy like me, you'll look for opportunities to merge power-ups into bigger ones to blow up the board - kaboom!

Beyond that though, match-3 games are mostly designed to slow you down. You've got limited moves, boards with obstacles, gravity changes that make gems fall sideways or upwards (god, that messes with my head!), or just completely rubbish RNG. All of this is intended to make you spend in-game or real currency on power-ups.

Matchy Way Tales Matchy Way Tales

Examples are Angry Birds Match, Royal Kingdom and Candy Crush Saga. Steam is a little different because most games don't have microtransactions, but you still see the same mechanics in newly-released games like Matchy Way Tales and Sweet Dreams Cafe, both of which I've been playing.

A few genre-breaking match-3s

Off the top of my head, a few match-3 games that do something differently are Gems of War, which leans heavily on the unique powers of the characters in your team, 10,000,000 and its sequel You Must Build a Boat which have you shifting entire rows rather than gems as you run through endless dungeons, and my favorite, HuniePop, the NSFW dating game which has the best matching mechanic I've seen in a game.

HuniePop HuniePop's "Alpha Mode" takes some serious strategizing

HuniePop - the thinky match-3

Adult-content aside, the beauty of HuniePop lies in two simple differences. Firstly, there are an equal number of each type of gem, so you can count how many are on the board and predict which type of gem will fall next. This already adds a layer of strategy you don't get in games with huge cascades of falling gems.

Secondly, you're not limited to swapping a gem with an adjacent one. Instead, you can move a gem anywhere along its row or column. This opens up the opportunity to make some smart matches, so long as you have a keen eye.

While the slow pace and necessary brain power might not appeal to casual match-3 players, I love it in the same way I like roguelite deckbuilders like Gwent and Rustbowl Rumble, or sokoban puzzle games like Ligo and Stephen's Sausage Roll.

More strategy match-3 games please!

So I urge developers to add more strategy to their match-3 games instead of just blowing stuff up like in Sweet Dreams Cafe!

Sweet Dreams Cafe Sweet Dreams Cafe