Samegame Fighter
Being a heroic adventurer isn't the glamorous lifestyle it's made out to be. Carrying all those items is a drag, you have to camp out even when it's pouring rain, monsters are always trying to murder you, you rarely get a chance to do laundry so you end up wearing the same underwear for weeks on end...it's actually a pretty tough life. Thankfully we have games like Samegame Fighter, a new puzzler from Mamono Sweeper creators Hojamaka Games, to keep our rose-tinted glasses firmly attached to our noses when it comes to the adventuring lifestyle. Samegame Fighter cuts out all the nasty parts of adventuring (and most of the other parts, for that matter) and distills battling monsters to a matching game similar to Puzzle Quest or Dungeon Raid.
Just click on an icon to collect it and all similar icons adjacent to it. Different icons do different things. Swords and axes both deal damage to the enemy. Shields reduce enemy damage by a value equal to how many shields you match for three turns. Potions restore health or grant a bonus to max health if you grab them while topped off. Finally, purple orbs boost your attack damage on your next turn. This might sound simple, but there's actually a fair amount of strategy involved; some enemies, for instance, ignore defense with their attacks so you'll need to focus on dealing damage as quickly as possible before they overcome you. Other monsters have powerful defenses themselves so you'll need to collect orbs before attacking to make significant progress.
All of this is brought together in an appealing retro style, though I would suggest you turn your speakers down before playing as the sound effects can be grating. The battles get fairly tough as you proceed and there's a certain element of luck involved in the game, but generally there's a strategy to follow in each fight that will lead you to victory and the key is figuring that out. Samegame Fighter is a solid choice for those of us who'd love to be heroes but enjoy changing our underwear regularly.
Actually, purple orbs power up the next group of icons you click on. Ex: 5 purple orbs can add 5 points to health, shield, sword, axe, etc. Unfortunately the only thing they don't add points to is other purple orbs.
Note that magic "purple orbs" boost EVERYTHING (besides magic), not just attack. That means that using it on a large group of shield is often more efficient, as shields block three TIMES. Not always the best idea though as you won't have enough damage with only axes and swords. This is mostly important later on when the monsters have 10+ attack.
Getting another group of magic/shield will replace what you already have.
If you are already at your max hp, you can boost your max with potions. However, if you are not, you can only restore up to your max, wasting any extra.
Pretty sure magic fire ignores armor.
Lastly, pressing give up or dying makes you restart from the current level. So you don't have to start all over again.
That last level was pretty challenging, but a lot of fun! Took a lot of tries to get it. It's a very interesting variation on the "cluster" type games.
Finally beaten it! Fun game =D Although it took me 5 stages to figure out it was turn base system and not racing against time XD
That was a really great take on something that is otherwise played out - in fact, I liked it a lot more than the puzzle quest games. To me, the randomness here forces you to plan ahead while keeping each game fresh. In puzzle quest, the random aspect of the board made it impossible to ever have a close game - if your HP ever dropped too low, you could set up the computer for a hit without intending to if you had no other move or the item drops in the screen without your control. I really like the system. Simple, and open to some enemy options as well. I'd like to see more!
Any suggestions on how to get past
red wyrm? 50 HP, 10 ATK, and use a magic attack sometimes too
I tried building up a good shield first, but the magic attack also eats a shield use even though it's not blocked, so each shield is worth only 2 blocks. Relying on heals alone is not fast enough, and it's not possible to try for a fast kill like the previous enemy.
The Iron Golem is giving me fits. I can't seem to come up with a strategy for him.
Like this game, even though luck-of-the-draw is a major factor.
@hikari
Don't bother using magic to build up a shield capable of defeating the whole attack.
I beat that level by using the first three turns to
Use magic
Increase my max health
Grab the best shield I could with no magic
After that, I just attacked as fast as I could. Since the Wyrm has no shield, you don't necessarily need magic boosts for attacking, and you need them more for healing and shielding.
@Mme
Thanks! Beat them all :)
As for Iron Golem, I
Used "Give up" until I see a good starting cluster of both magic and weapons. Got lucky and had a starting shield of value 7 too. I started off removing some potions to get some weapon clusters to stick together, so that boosted my survivability as well. The golem attack slow and use only physical hits, so get a shield up then focus on grouping up magic and weapons for large attacks.
That was quite hard
Took a few tries, but I finally beat the last level. Before that, it only took me more than one try on level 7 or so (by which point I still hadn't bothered to figure out what the "magic" tile did).
Update