Christmas Match
A cozy Christmas match-3 puzzle game – 30 levels with ice, gingerbread and lights, spectacular special combos and a Christmas tree you decorate as you play.
Opens at bsite.se/play/christmas-match/
Maturity
- Idea(completed)
- Prototype(completed)
- Alpha(completed)
- Beta(current stage)
- Promoted
About the project
Christmas Match is a classic match-3 game dressed for Christmas: glossy glass ornaments, silver bells and golden stars on a board in a warm wooden cabin. Swap two neighbours to make a row of three, and bigger matches turn into candy cane rockets, present bombs and Magic Stars – combine two of them for the biggest moments in the game.
The 30 levels add one idea at a time: first collecting, then ice that cracks under your matches, gingerbread men that have to reach the bottom, and lamps you switch on by matching next to them. Every win also unlocks decorations for your own Christmas tree, which fills up as you travel through the snowy village.
Under the tinsel is a reusable match-3 engine in plain TypeScript. Every move becomes a list of steps that the Phaser view plays back, so the rules can be tested without a browser and a bot can play every level to tune moves and stars. The theme – art, levels, sounds and texts – is a separate folder, so a Halloween or Easter version would reuse everything else.
Current state
What works
- 30 handmade levels on an 8×8 board – collect, score, ice in one or two layers, gingerbread to bring down to the exits, and lamps to switch on
- Match 4 for a candy cane rocket, 5 for a Magic Star, T or L for a present bomb – and seven special combinations, each with its own effect
- Christmas Rush at the end of a level, four boosters and an automatic reshuffle so the board never locks up
- Decorate the Tree – winning levels unlocks 60 decorations, and the tree is full by the last level; seven achievements
- A snowy village map, How to Play cards, generated original art, music and sound effects, and English and Swedish
- Swipe or tap on phones, mouse and keyboard on desktop; first load about 570 KB; 455 unit tests and 73 browser tests
- The match-3 engine knows nothing about Christmas – another theme is a new folder of art, levels and sounds
What isn’t finished
- Difficulty is calibrated with a bot and has not yet been tested by real players
- Progress is saved on the device only – no accounts or cloud saves
- Only the Christmas theme so far
Why is this project on BSite?
- Early prototype
Christmas Match is finished as a game but new – the 30 levels are balanced against a bot, not against people. It lives here in the lab while it is played over the Christmas season. When the difficulty curve has been confirmed by real players it is ready to move to EverydayGames.
Screenshots
A rocket and present bomb combined on the board – three full rows and three full columns light up and clear at once, in a cozy wooden cabin with a Christmas tree beside the board. 
Level 5, a plus-shaped board of red, green, blue and purple glass ornaments and silver bells, with the level, goal and moves on wooden signs above and four boosters below. 
The Winter Village level map – a snowy path through a village at night with level buttons, the first two finished with stars and the rest locked with padlocks. 
Decorate the Tree – a fully decorated Christmas tree with stars, red ornaments, bows, lights, gingerbread and presents, beside a list showing 10 of 10 for every kind.
Development log
Version 1.0.0 with 30 levels, obstacles, the village map, Decorate the Tree, music, achievements and an accessibility pass – published in the lab at bsite.se/play/christmas-match/.
Design spec from a mockup; the first milestone built a pure TypeScript match-3 engine, levels 1–10, menu, map and generated art and sound.