Try it here: Exploding Boxes
Basically the same rules as Fruit Box, with a few exceptions:
- Draw a rectangle with the mouse to select boxes whose score adds up to 10
- Eliminating a square grants one point
- After eliminating square, there's a chance for remaining boxes to take damage, reducing their score
- When a box score reaches 0, it dies
- No time limit - the game ends when there are no more boxes on the screen or when it's not possible to make a move
This game features 3 special boxes:
- Red box: explodes when reaches 0, damaging all neighbouring boxes
- Green box: grows back when eliminated
- Blue box: grants 5 points when eliminated
Exploding Boxes is a simple game inspired by Fruit Box, a game I found out only about two weeks ago.
One afternoon I was browsing the featured section of itch.io, looking for new and interesting ways to procrastinate, and I found this blocky game where you had to group boxes to score 10 points. It was entered for a game jam in which the theme was something related to having a maximum size of code, so the game was very simple and had no sound or animations; however, it really caught my attention because it was really minimalistic and yet very fun to play.
Of course I can't find the game anymore, since I can't even remember its name, but if anyone knows what I'm talking about, please let me know so I can give proper credit to the original creator.
For a while now I have been trying to get into game development (for the sake of it, just because I wanted to try it out), but one of the things that holds me back is my complete lack of any artistic skill. I can code, I can write, but I really can't draw or design anything that looks remotely good.
In this painful journey of mine, I have been thinking about how I could solve this problem with a different approach, landing on puzzle games. I feel that they are often easier to make as they don't require extensive art assets and don't require a script or a story to be engaging.
So, going back to Fruit Box (and its clone), I decided that I wanted to implement my own version of it, with a few twists.
I quickly wrote down some ideas, including:
- the game needed to be more "relaxed" than the original, with no time limit
- the user had to think about the move for a little while before making it, instead of maximising the number of eliminations
- there needed to be more ways to score points
- the boxes needed to interact with each other
So, after a few gruelling days of off-and-on coding (I still have exams to do, sadly) I convinced myself that the game was ready to be published.
This is the first game I have ever published, hoping to make more of them in the future.
I hope you enjoy it!
- Font used in the game is m5x7 by Daniel Linssen
This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details.