Well this is it! I have completed the third game in my [three game prototype challenge](/posts/the-three-game-challenge/). ([first game](/posts/the-three-game-challenge-part-1-lateshas-crib/), [second game](/posts/the-three-game-challenge-part-2-a-cunning-plan/))



With this one I wanted to try my hand at a very popular game genre at the moment, match-three. Because this is a rather simple style of game I thought it would be really easy and fast to make. Wrong. I spent hours without touching a keyboard trying to come up with some novel twist on the genre.

I toyed around with a gem dropping mechanic but that didn't work so well, then I thought about how someone interacts with match-three games on mobile, by dragging the icons around. So I decided to base my game play on dragging gems around until they make a match.

I originally wanted a "mindless" match-three game like Montezuma, one where you play it as fast as you can without thinking too much about the moves. As I started developing the game play for this one however it seemed to fit a puzzle like game better so that's what I ended up with.

[![screenshot_01](/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/screenshot_01-300x219.png)](/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/screenshot_01.png) [![screenshot_02](/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/screenshot_02-300x219.png)

](/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/screenshot_02.png)[![screenshot_03](/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/screenshot_03-300x219.png)](/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/screenshot_03.png) [![screenshot_04](/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/screenshot_04-300x219.png)](/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/screenshot_04.png)

Anyways give it a go and let me know what you think:

[Play The Family Jewels

](/projects/jewels)

This one took a little less time at the others at 31hours over 7 days, as per the other two I recorded my time spent:

17th April
11:00 - 12:00
15:00-18:00

20th April
10:00-12:00

21st April
13:00-17:00

22nd April
11:00-13:00
14:00-16:00
20:00-21:00

23rd April
11:00-16:00

24th April
11:00-16:00
18:00-21:00

25th April
11:00-12:00

Well that's the end of my challenge! Im surprised I managed to do it. A little over a week per game seems like hardly any time at all but having that time restriction really is good as it helps to limit your scope, preventing the game from ballooning out into something that could otherwise have taken months and still not have been any fun to play.

As for the tools I used. I used Richard Lord's excellent [Ash Game Framework](https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ashframework.org%2F&ei=sQt5UeOlHsam0wXF74DYBQ&usg=AFQjCNGf9MWL8YXaduF6F9pn2bsVQNDzGQ&sig2=VA_kHUtU14g4k2q5xISD3w&bvm=bv.45645796,d.d2k) to develop them all alongside Starling with Feathers on top of Flash for the rendering. For rapidly prototyping games they have been excellent. Now im more familiar with Ash I may write a post or two about how to go about structuring certain parts of a game in an enitity-component like manner.

But for the next week or so I need to finish my packing before my [mammoth trip to Central and South America](/posts/my-2013/).

Another week, another game completed as part of [my three prototype games challenge](/posts/the-three-game-challenge/) ([part one](/posts/the-three-game-challenge-part-1-lateshas-crib/), [part three](/posts/the-three-game-challenge-part-3-the-family-jewels/)) I set myself at the start of this month.



For this one I decided on a type of game that I have been wanting to make for a while, a turn based strategy game. Many moons ago I used to play a J2ME (shudder) game called Ancient Empires. It was a great little game with lots of depth and replayabliltiy and I think it deserved a remake of sorts.

So here is "A Cunning Plan":

![screenshot_16](/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/screenshot_16-300x224.png) ![screenshot_13](/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/screenshot_13-300x222.png)
![screenshot_14](/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/screenshot_14-300x220.png) ![screenshot_15](/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/screenshot_15-300x225.png)

You can play the game here:

[Play A Cunning Plan](/projects/acunningplan)

This game was far more complex to create than [Latesha's Crib](/posts/the-three-game-challenge-part-1-lateshas-crib/) and hence I spent about 43 hours over the last 9 days making this one.

I was able to save some time by reusing parts of the rendering and hopping logic from Latesha's Crib. As usual I used the  [Ash Framework](https://www.ashframework.org/) with Adobe Starling and Feathers. To code the AI for the computer player I used [Tim Conkling's Excellent Godmode Behaviour Trees](https://github.com/tconkling/godmode-as3) library which is truly an excellent AS3 library. The way Behaviour Trees work is really cool, I strongly recommend checking them out if you are going to design any sort of AI.

Special thanks go to [Mike Rigby](https://www.facebook.com/mikepaulrigby) for helping with play testing and [Ian Callaghan](https://www.facebook.com/ian.t.callaghan) for suggesting I check out Behaviour Trees :)

Let me know what you think of it, if people are feeling it then I may turn it into a full-blown mobile game!

Again I recorded the my time spent making this one, heres the log:

4th April
9:30am - 2pm
3pm - 7pm

5th April
9:30am - 10:30am

6th April
12:00pm - 4pm (-1 for josh, -1 for lunch &amp; spanish)

7th April
2pm - 19:30pm

8th April
1pm - 3:30pm (-1 spanish and lunch)
4pm - 6pm

9th April
3pm - 7pm

10th April
12pm - 7pm

11th April
9am - 10am
1pm - 6pm;

12th April
10am - 1:30pm

starling

starling

starling