There’s a high score table also. I’d love to see people’s scores!
Here is an update, which hopefully addresses some of the things @wuuff mentioned. I’m keeping it out of the itch.io version for now, so that the bug fixes don’t skew the voting, there was a time limit after all.
This is a solid gem-matching game, and I like the way the joes walk when you switch them. It functions well and the music is catchy. Generally speaking, it’s a great matching game for the pokitto! More game modes would be nice, like a zen mode.
I think the title screen music is a little bit too loud when compared to the in-game music.
I encountered a few odd bugs. It seems like the board isn’t randomized when you start a new game after a game over, and if you end up with a board with no moves, then you have to restart the pokitto for it to generate a new playable board. Also, if you start swapping some joes right before the timer runs out, those same joes are selected and will immediately match when you start a new game.
The game is very polished and a great version of the match-3 game. The music and gfx are very good, and the Joe character gives extra personality for the game.
The only downside is that most of us has played this kind of games a lot, so maybe some kind of twist could have been good to have.
Found a bug with multiple matches in different directions. If the yellow Joe is moved as shown, only one straight line will be matched, leaving the other two matching Joes.
Yes, this update seems to have fixed it. Got two +24 point bonuses in a row on a single cascade, followed by another +26 point bonus single match.
The last item I noticed is the timer continuing while Joes are dropping. I know “other” gem matching games freeze this while the player doesn’t have control of the board. Current behavior seems to slightly incentivize moves that are cheaper in terms of Joes moving on the board: single 5-Joe matches, or other higher bonus combinations that only require a single drop. Not a complaint though, just an observation.