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Match-Three Game

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A Casual Video Game Sub-Genre of the Puzzle Game. The objective is to match three objects of similar color/shape/species to eliminate said objects from the playing field. Specific objectives vary from game to game, but include:

  1. Play until you run out of time, space, or moves.
  2. Match a certain number of Object X to advance.
  3. Rack up a certain number of points to advance.
: In competitive examples, where players compete against the computer or other players on a split screen, making a match may result in a few garbage blocks, which can be eliminated only by matching other objects connected to them, dropping onto the opponent's field; combos will increase the number of garbage blocks. Games may also throw other special blocks onto the field, such as power ups, obstacles (like garbage, but indestructible) and other bonuses. You can also — again, depending on the game — get bonus points and/or helpful effects by matching four or more objects.

Match Three Games came about during the heyday of the 1990s handhelds — specifically with the advent of Columns for the Sega Game Gear. With the boom in Casual Games, the genre has similarly expanded. Commonly employ Falling Blocks and Difficulty by Acceleration.

A "Merge 3" sub-genre has also grown in traction due to the popularity of Merge Dragons. In this type of game, matching three objects does not remove it from the board, but rather combine them into a higher tier version of that particular item. Games of this category often also contains elements of Construction and Management Games, as the purpose of levelling up the various objects are usually to produce better resources to (re)build a landscape, city or other types of setting. Several games also use a "merge 2" variant, where players only need two objects instead of three to level it up.

Sub-Trope of Grid Puzzle, the general trope for puzzles solved by arranging the elements of a grid. Compare Magic Square Puzzle (a square array of integers that sum the same in each row, column, and main diagonal).

Examples:

    open/close all folders 
    Falling pieces 
The player must control each piece as it falls from the top of the screen, moving it around and usually rotating it or shifting parts of the piece. A few have pieces arrive from some other direction, but the principle is the same.
  • Columns (1989; the Ur-Example)
  • Klax (1989; possibly tied for Ur-Example) — the challenge, as well as certain staged, tended to need complex formations for big points or by making other tiles fall into scoring positions.
  • Dr. Mario (match four)
  • GemStorm (match three to seven, depending on level)
  • Lumines (match a 2x2 square)
  • Super Puzzle Fighter II
  • Puyo Puyo (match four)
  • Taisen Puzzle Dama/Crazy Cross and its numerous sequels and themed Spin Offs:
    • Susume! Taisen Puzzle Dama/Let's Attack Crazy Cross
    • TwinBee Taisen Puzzle Dama
    • Tokimeki Memorial Taisen Puzzle Dama and Tokimeki Memorial 2 Taisen Puzzle Dama
    • Tsuyoshi Shikkari Shinasai Taisen Puzzle-Dama
    • Chibi Maruko-chan Taisen Puzzle Dama
    • Pop'n Taisen Puzzle Dama Online
  • Tetris 2 (can best be described as Dr. Mario with Tetris pieces)
  • Yoshi (match two)
  • Critical Mass has you manually place the blocks on a cube that gradually expands, but the spirit is the same.
  • Blastris B, one of the six games sold with the Super Scope game Super Scope 6.
  • Bomberman: Panic Bomber
  • Hatris (match five)
  • Tidalis has you match disconnected blocks using "streams".
  • Hebereke's Popoon
  • Baku Baku Animal (match animals with their Stock Animal Diet)
  • Teki Paki (match five in any configuration)
  • Oh My God!👁 Image
  • Kirby's Star Stacker (match two)
  • Battle Balls (match four)
  • Tecmo Stackers (match four)
  • The Mario Party 7 special minigame Stick 'n' Spin (match five)
  • Mario Party: The Top 100: The minigames classified within the Puzzler category, namely Block Star (6), Stick 'n' Spin (7), and Jewel Drop (10). The mechanics are different in each, but all of them involve connecting incoming objects or entities of the same color to make them disappear and earn points.
  • Gururin for the Neo Geo, which doesn't let you rotate the falling pieces, but does let you rotate the playfield.
  • Anipop has you match Ridiculously Cute Critters.
    Swapping pieces 
The player has to swap two or more pieces. As blocks are cleared, the field is replenished with more pieces, either immediately after they're cleared or continuously from some source.
    Swapping and Falling 
The player has to swap two or more pieces. However, blocks also come down from the top of the screen at the same time. There is limited control in where and how falling pieces will land.
  • Meteos
  • Pokémon Trozei! (match four; a hard mode requires the player to match five)
  • Tetrisphere has the player shift around and drop pieces in order to clear them.
  • Neopets has the Sutek's Tomb minigame.
    Launching pieces 
The player chooses the direction or location each piece will go before it starts moving. Once a piece is in motion, it is out of the player's control.
  • 7 Wonders
  • Angry Birds Pop
  • Animal Rotary combines this with the Merging system. The player launches an animal-shaped piece into the available slots within a circular board to try and merge them into a different animal based on the Eastern Zodiac order, plus a few more. The game ends if you've filled up the board.
  • AstroPop (match four)
  • Bubbles👁 Image
     (browser game requiring Flash).
  • Bubble Witch Saga
  • Cubis is a 3-dimensial version of this. Pieces can stack on top of each other to a height of three. Each turn, the player fires a piece from one of two edges of the board. Wedge shape pieces will slide underneath the first cube that they hit before turning into a normal cube. There is also a special piece that, if it hits another cube, merges with it and then split it into a stack of two normal cubes of the same color.
  • Dynomite!
  • Inside Out Thought Bubbles.
  • Kitty Pawp
  • Klax, where the player first has to catch an approaching block, then drop it into the grid below.
  • Luxor
  • Magical Drop
  • Magnetica
  • Money Idol Exchanger (match two or five)
  • Palamedes, with the twist that blocks can only be matched after being individually eliminated from the board
  • Plotting (match two)
  • Pop'n Pop
  • Potpourri
  • Puzzle Bobble a.k.a. Bust a Move
  • Puzzloop
  • Snood
  • Snoopy Pop
  • Sparkle
  • Tetrisphere
  • Thrillville and its sequel have a playable Mini-Game on the food and drink stands called Vendor Tender where the pieces are food or drink items.
  • Tip Top: Columns of pieces are placed in the middle of the board. In each turn, the player drops a piece onto the top of one of the columns, and another piece is also shot up to the bottom of a random column.
  • Tropix: The game and its sequel contain a Puffer Popper minigame where you play as a crab taking out pufferfish attempting to destroy a sandcastle with colored bubble.
  • Tumblebugs
  • Wheel Of Fortune Pop
  • Zuma
    Merging pieces 
The player can freely move pieces around the board, combining them to increase the level of the item.
    Other 
The mechanics in these games don't fit in any category above or are unique.
  • 2048 is a merge two game where the player uses the arrows to shift gravity and make two similar tiles merge together to get a tile of double the value.
  • Similar to Klax is Audiosurf, which combined the concept with levels generated from your music files.
  • Best Fiends has players create a line through at least three of the same piece to clear them off of the board, filling up meters to unleash special attacks and depleting slug hit points. Some levels require certain amounts of a piece to be cleared to finish it.
  • Birzzle: Players have to drag 3 birds together to clear them. Matches of 4 or more birds results in them merging into a power bird that when cleared unleashes their power to clear the board more efficiently. New birds fall from above every now and then. The goal is to go as long as possible before the entire board is filled up with birds.
  • Boop has players placing kittens on the board, to create a line of three, but dropping a kitten will repel adjacent kittens into empty spaces. A line of three allows removing one of the kittens to replace with a cat, and the game is won by creating a line of three cats.
  • Break Blocks👁 Image
    involves a rhythm game to construct a large block (otherwise parts of the block have the wrong color), then dropping it towards the outside of the ring. Blocks need to be matched in the same color, may use a secondary color to bridge to a different color, and then broken in a set of 10 or more.
  • Collapse!: Rows of colored blocks emerge from the bottom of the screen, and you click a group of three or more blocks of the same color to clear them from the screen.
  • Chromashift: You change the color of the gems, instead of moving the gem positions. 👁 Image
    .
  • Disney Tsum Tsum: Players drag their fingers over three or more Puni Plushies of Disney, Pixar, and Star Wars characters to clear them away.
  • Edge of Awakening: Combat functions using "skill blocks", in which square blocks slide onto the screen in a horizontal row. Tapping on these blocks will clear them from the row and allow the characters to execute the skills depicted on the blocks. Clearing a cluster of 3 adjacent identical skill blocks allows the character with that skill to perform its strongest version.
  • Fire In The Hole has players throwing cannonballs onto a ship, the first to have four balls adjacent to each other winning.
  • Lily's Garden has you tapping on sets of two or more tiles in order to match them away. New tiles fall from above to fill the empty spaces.
  • Magic Shop (2007): You click on three or more pieces that are adjacent to each other to collect them.
  • Magic Vines has you rotating branches of various flora instead of swapping tiles. Align three or more and poof!
  • Mario Party: Star Rush:
    • Tiles and Tribulations challenges the players to move tiles around a grid depicting different enemies to line up three in a row to earn coins. The players use a square-shaped cursor to rotate four pieces in a clockwise motion.
    • Boo's Block Party is a side mode where blocks with the numbers 1 through 4 rise from the bottom of the screen. Players can move their cursor around to select blocks and rotate them through the four numbers to match three in either a horizontal or vertical line to eliminate them and score points. The objective is to go as long as possible without letting the blocks rise to the top of the screen.
  • ''OXO, being a tic-tac-toe computer game, involves having to line three naughts or crosses up.
  • Puzzle & Dragons: You touch and drag a piece, and the piece can go anywhere at all, shifting other pieces behind it as it goes. Any pieces that are eliminated get filled with new pieces. You only have a few seconds to shift it around and line up three before it counts as a turn.
  • The game show Three on a Match had contestants attempting to match either prizes or images (depending on when in the run it was) on a large 4x3 game board, using money earned from answering questions to uncover boxes.
  • Tic-Tac-Toe (Noughts and Crosses) might be the simplest match-three game. Two players. The first to get three Xs or Os in a row, column, or diagonal is the winner. Game show The Hollywood Squares and its UK counterpart Celebrity Squares are based on this, as are Tic-Tac-Dough and the Secret "X" game on The Price Is Right.
  • Triple Town: the player places objects on a field, combining them to make other objects. Three grasses make a bush, three bushes make a tree, three trees make a house, and so on until the board is full.
  • Two games in the With Friends line:
    • In Matching With Friends you drag and drop pieces onto the board to match three or more of a color to be removed from the board.
    • In Gems With Friends, you drag and drop individual gems onto the board; once three or more match a color, they condense to form one gem of the next higher number.
  • Wrecking Crew '98: Each row of panels can be shifted, though unwanted panels can usually be demolished individually.
    Uncategorized 
  • Bounce Out!
  • Chuzzle
  • Fruit Smash and its seasonal sequel, Trick or Treat Smash
  • Glissaria (match five)
  • Mariposa
  • Molesting the Match-3 Market👁 Image
  • Puzznic (match two)
  • The Bilge Pumping and Rumble games in Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates. The Sailing game also has a match-four mechanic, but it's not the primary goal.
    • The developers at Three Rings really like these; the Foraging and Treasure Haul games are also Match Three.
  • As an April Fools' Day joke, Kongregate featured a Match One game.
  • Paris Hilton's Diamond Quest. Really.
  • Alphacat combines this with Turn-Based Combat. The more matching tiles you draw a line through, the more effective your attack is.

Alternative Title(s): Match Four Game

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