Swap Machina

Panel de Pon. Tetris Attack. Puzzle League. The very specific genre of swap-tile puzzle games now has its own version on Playdate, and it was made in Pulp. It’s Swap Machina.

For me, Tetris Attack and Pokémon Puzzle League were the ones that really got me into this kind of game, and I haven’t really seen anything like it since the N64? I hear that the 3DS Animal Crossing had it included in the free amiibo expansion, but I don’t know if I ever found it or was even still playing it at the point when they added amiibo support (but now I have to go back and check!). Swap Machina is a blast from the past.

The only thing that really holds it back from the full-size console games is the small screen. There’s no side-by-side battling against a sibling or the CPU. But, there ARE online leaderboards. It’s a game where you play as long as you can, until the ever-increasing speed of the blocks makes the stack hit the top of the screen. (You’ll maybe last five minutes.) Since the icons are small, they have to be distinct enough from each other to not get confused on the small screen, like how they managed to get Zoop onto the original Game Boy despite it being such a color-heavy game, and this was a success. Since you also need to see the two swapping squares that are highlighted by your cursor, it handles that by making an even tinier version of the icon appear inside the cursor. At first I didn’t quite get it, but once I understood that the small gear is just a smaller, highlighted version of the regular gear icon, it was all good.

There are two difficulty levels, each with their own leaderboards, and the main difference is the starting speed. You are able to add a row of blocks from the bottom with the crank to build high scoring combos, and you get a few extra points for making matches near the top of the screen, but it’s risky. There are also some lightning bolt items that help you clear chunks of the screen at once, saving you from certain doom. Besides that, though, it’s the classic Tetris Attack gameplay you loved 30 years ago. And making something like this in Pulp? Playdate devs are always pushing the boundaries of that free game engine, and I am HERE FOR IT.

(Released January 15, 2023, on Catalog. Copy provided by developer.)