Archive for February, 2008

Match-3s in the BFG Top 100

Monday, February 25th, 2008

Having programmed four match-3s, I’m always interested in how the genre is doing. With the current prevalence of Hidden Object/Adventure games and Time Management games, match-3s seem to have fallen by the wayside a bit. Most of them never reach the BFG top 10, and none have got to no.1 for a long time.

Last night I did a bit of research to find out how many match-3 (or similar matching games) were in the BFG top 100. The answer is not very many as you can see by the chart below (click it to view it full size):

BFG Match 3s

The chart is ordered by date released with the oldest at the top (oops, just noticed that the bottom ones should all say “08” as the year, sorry about that). Some of the newer ones will probably slip out the top 100 soon, especially if they never got into the top 10 in the first place.

There are TONS of match-3s on BFG, but you can see that hardly any are in the top 100. This sounds bad for anyone making a match-3 now but it is encouraging to see that a really good one can make it into the top 10 and remain in the top 100 for a while.

Interviews with the designer of Fairway Solitaire

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

John Cutter designed the on-line version of Fairway Solitaire and then I programmed the enhanced download version with his continued input. Many people regard it as a really great game with a very odd combination of subjects – golf and solitaire – that somehow worked very well together.

John has been interviewed about Fairway Solitaire recently by GameZebo and has also been interviewed in a sports gaming podcast.

John reveals how he first came up with the idea and refined it with the online programmer and then with me for the download version, and how we argued over stuff like the sound effects 🙂

Woo, starting a new game tomorrow!

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

Finally I’ve finished localising Fairway Solitaire (It was a tad laborious to say the least, but it will generate more sales). And now I’m ready to start a new game! I love this bit – end of one project, start of another.

For a few days I’ll be going over the new game’s design docs (sent to me by John Cutter from BFG) and offering my feedback on them, and then I’ll make a giant plan with time estimates before I even start programming. It’s a fun stage full of idea generation and lots of lying around on my sofa thinking stuff up haha (I’d prefer to be in the garden but it’s not warm enough yet).

I’ll be working with a new artist on this one and a new art director so it’ll be interesting getting to know them and their working methods.

Not sure how long the game will take yet until I’ve finished the plan. We’ve got tons of ideas as per usual but we may have to slim them down in order to get the game out in a reasonable time frame. Unfortunately because I’ve signed a contract, I can’t talk about the game so you’ll just have to wait until it’s finished…

Anyone else exited to start something new recently (or soon)?