Match-3 Game Design Toolkit

Assigned Human-Computer Interaction Computer Science Games Engineering Bachelor Project Thesis No Affiliation Games Research Lab

Background

In a seminar thesis, a Games Engineering student recently gathered and systematically analysed everything he could find about match-3 games. For instance, he identified their core mechanics—swapping, collapsing, shooting, linking and navigating. He further classified additional mechanics including, for instance, the application of gadgets, e.g. bombs and combos, or overcoming obstacles such as blocked elements.

Task

It’s your task to (a) develop a match-3 game design toolkit for the Godot engine that implements the mechanics and gadgets summarised in the preceding seminar thesis, to (b) systematically test the impact of various combinations of mechanics and gadgets on the gameplay over time, e.g. track the interactions in a pure swapping level, analyse the time intervals in-between, the variance of time intervals, etc. Then move on to a swapping level that also incorporates bombs or combos, apply the analytical metrics again and try to extract some patterns associated with specific game designs.

Contact Persons at the University Würzburg