Puzzle Droid
what is it?
Another puyo puyo clone, but more complete and with an extra mechanic (a boost to shoot the puyo upwards with a meter that you use up)
It also had a messaging app (with a MySQL database), in which you could add friends and send messages to those friends.
What is Puyo Puyo?
Essentially, a long-running Tetris-like puzzle game series, where instead of blocks you drop blobs, and instead of clearing lines your focus is on chains.
A chain is where clearing one clump of same-coloured blobs triggers another clump of blobs to be cleared (basically clearing blobs consecutively).
4 or more connected blobs don't have to be all horizontal like in Tetris. They can connect both horizontally and vertically. Pairs of blobs are dropped at a time (they don't have to be the same colour as each other).
The background?
This was for my A levels (16-18 year old) Non-exam assessment (basically a final year project). Our software had to solve a problem. I decided to do a Puyo Puyo clone...because? Well, I really just wanted to make a Puyo Puyo clone again.
The problem?
I sort of had to work backwards for this one and said that the messaging systems were not good for puzzle games so I wanted to add good in-game chat. Basically, I had to create two products to be able to create the one I wanted. Not really the ideal Problem and solution combo, but again, a good learning opportunity.
The hardest part was the algorithm to detect which blobs were connected, to clear them, and then also detect chains (consecutively clearing Puyo).