So while "THWAK! Infinite Forest" sits on the back burner for a bit, something I'll get into in a different entry, I've started digging deep into my newest video game endeavor: "That Summer I Saved the Town".

BUT WHY MATCH-3? THERE ARE SO MANY.

It's true. There are a ton. And it is admittedly my favorite type of casual puzzle game. I've definitely played my share of match-3 games as well as the variants: longest path (Best Fiends), move anywhere (Puzzles & Dragons), timed (Bejeweled Blitz, Disney Emoji Blitz), shooting (Puzzle Bobble / Bust-A-Move), and so on. And ultimately, some of my fondest memories and game play time are attributed to match-3 games (Puzzle Quest on DS and Bust-A-Move 2 on Playstation come to mind).

As you can see in the game loop described above, it leaves me a lot of room to stay creative and treat the world as a playground for ideas. If I want to work on a silly fishing game, it fits in the town you are saving. If I want to introduce a daily gachapon machine to collect little pieces of plastic, it fits in the collections. If I want to draw dungeon characters one day and forest creatures the next, the game also allows me to do that.

This approach to design and development feels more calming than anxiety-inducing, thus it is exciting for me to pursue. Hope you stick around for these posts and find them interesting! Trying something new with this dev blog series.