I’ve made a few improvements to Col-4, so that now at least I think it’s fun.

Relevant changes are:
- Smaller playing area, but higher.. kind of
- Different speed scale
- Special block
- Now middle area swappable instead of the upper one
- Preview of next block

Download source and Windows binary. Extra clarification note and reminder: this is post-48h, and shouldn’t be used for the voting.

Here’s my 10 hours entry: Col-4. It’s based on Columns, with the biggest difference being that you can swap the upper part of the playing field. This isn’t really so useful, but it can serves as a few extra lives, or half-lives, rather.

I didn’t much like the theme in the end, and that was why I didn’t start on an entry until today (well, partly — I couldn’t come up with a fun idea). And even then, I did a minimal effort. For matching the theme, there’s lots of minimalism. Columns to begin with is a very minimal game. Then I added minimal innovation that had minimal usefulness. Improvement in fun over the original is extremely minimal (probably negative). Readme is pretty minimal too. Features in game are minimal. Graphics are minimal.

Line up three or more blocks in same color to get points and remove blocks. Left/Right/Down keys to move moving block. Space to drop it. Up to rotate colors. A/D to swap upper part. Esc to quit.

Windows binary and source. Compiling for GNU/Linux shouldn’t require more than a small effort, but I’m not sure it would be worth even that.

OK. I’ve written a columns-like game. Columns to begin with is very minimal. I had this idea of a little improvement (or weirdification) that one could rotate it around. Which I tested.

See? It’s not so useful though. Thinking maybe it’s better to just reduce it to actual columns, then at least innovation is minimal! But would feel a bit cheaty.

Got to fix score viewer and game over thingy, so I’ll have some time to ponder it.