I’ve been working on games more consistently and, well, better in a lot of ways over the last year but I continue to not finish many projects. I’ve started two separate things for Kate Barrett’s Open World Jam (the jam just got extended to early next year, so I might still finish one), been working on a handful of other ideas that keep growing in complexity, and
Anyway, for Halloween, I made a small game for my partner, Rachel, inspired by her love of skulls and all things Halloween and our shared love of Dr. Mario. It has a very goofy name, but it’s 2022–what clever name are you going to come up with for a skull-themed Halloween game?
It’s Bones in the Boneyard.
It’s got your standard stuff in a falling-block-matching game, here with both skulls you need to align in threes (horiz, diag, viert), as well as skeletons made from special blocks (which in three of the four modes are the real goal). But my favorite bit is the three stages I came up with for “puzzle mode,” games with special rules where you have to build skeletons from preset fields (the parts for the skeletons you normally get with the falling blocks, but here are already in the level with no bonus parts to come).
The game also has six colors of skulls and the field is only five spaces wide, so to play it well, you need to get creative in your layouts. It’s intentionally a little frustrating, but not as intentionally frustrating as my last Halloween falling-blocks game that I made 5 years ago.
I mostly seem to have lost my ability to make games quickly, but I assembled this game from start to finish in less than a week!
PS
This game is approaching done (and has been in a like 80% finished state since about August), but I need to tie off a few loose ends, run it through some testing, and, uh, get music for it. I had someone lined up but I think they needed to step away. So, uh, if anyone is interested, hmu.