Critical Match

Download: critical-match.nes Emulation via JSNES

Instructions

In Critical match, atoms will fall from the top of the screen in pairs, and your task is to stack the atoms to match the shape in the upper left of the screen. To do that, you'll need to do a little platforming and restack them.

You can grab blocks in front of you by pressing S. Watch for the blinking cursor to see your target. You can press UP + S to grab blocks falling above you, or DOWN + S to grab them below you. You can even split stacks by jumping and time your grab in the air!

Similarly, you can drop held blocks in front of you using S, or below you using DOWN + S. You can even place stacks below you no matter how tall the stack is!

About

Critical Match was my attempt to reuse code from the Treasure Stack port that I made. I didn't have rights to the original IP, but wanted to enter something into the NESDevCompo 2018. So I retrofited the game a bit to change the main objective, but keep most of the platforming/stacking code intact. I think it turned out OK. :) I feel like Critical Match has a bit more possible strategy compared to Treasure Stack too.

ROM Map

Here's a fun visualization I like. This is all the data in the ROM file interpreted as the NES's native graphics format. Each pixel represents 2 bits, and is arranged into tiles. It's fun to "see" the whole thing, and how little there really is. You can kind of see where the various data segments are, and even see a bit of the graphics even when they are compressed.