Backdrop is a match-3 style puzzle game which emphasizes thoughtful moves. There is no timer, and you can plan your moves at your own leisure.
The goal is to clear the vexed blocks - the ones with the bothered border. You can't interact with vexed blocks directly, so they must be cleared by other means.
There are four colors. Each block has an back and center color. Your cursor has a color as well.
Move your cursor with the directional buttons. Press the X/O action buttons to swap your cursor color with the selected block's back or center color, respectively.
When a block's back and center colors match, that block is cleared. Blocks above it drop down.
When a block drops down, if it lands next to a stationary block of the same back/center color and they form a group of 3+ blocks with that same back/center color, then all of them are cleared. This is called a chain clear, and this is also how you clear vexed blocks!
You begin a level with 8 swaps. You get an extra swap whenever you create a chain clear and whenever you clear a vexed block. You win if you clear all the vexed blocks within this swap limit.
The interactive tutorial concisely teaches the game rules.
Levels are randomly generated. If you want to revisit a particular grid layout, write down its seed (shown on the pause/win/lose screens), and you can enter this seed later.
There are 12 difficulty levels. You may have to develop clever techniques to clear the higher ones.
If you clear the final level, a secret reward awaits you...
Backdrop is my first PICO-8 game. I appreciated the focused workflow PICO-8 provides. In a little over a month, I was able to learn the platform, and design and implement Backdrop. I wasn't completely sure how Backdrop would play when starting the project, but PICO-8 made it fun and easy to iteratively design and test as the game was being created.
I put a couple more weeks into Backdrop after its initial release, and I feel it's fun and feature complete now.
I hope you enjoy Backdrop, and I would love to hear what you think!
V1.0 - 2024-01-21
V1.1 - 2024-01-26
V1.2 - 2024-02-02
V1.3 - 2024-02-06