Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles
| Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles | |
| |
| Download | The demo |
| Developer | Yuan Works |
| Version | release 1.00 |
| Webpage | Official Website |
| Status | Released |
Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles (or W&W) is a commercial videogame developed by Yuan Works. It is a puzzle game for the GP2X that combines strategy and action. W&W was the third place winner of the first GP2X Official Contest.
The demo version can be found here.
The official game page are here.
Contents |
Gameplay
W&W has several game modes. The basic strategy of the game is rotate the blocks to match them in diamond shape (the same shape the cursor has). If these blocks have the same element, then they will dissapear from the board, granting the player points according to the number of matched blocks.
There are five basic blocks in the game: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. Also, there are two special blocks: Wind and Void. Both of these special blocks have special interaction with the rest of the blocks.
The press is at the bottom of the board. It will start rising if the player doesn't achieve enough points, minimizing the board's available space. After playing a while, the game speed will increase, causing the press to rise faster.
The goal of the game is to keep the press from reaching the top, while achieving as many points as possible with the special moves the game has.
Special Moves
Matching is the basic move of the game. It consists in gathering four matching elements in a diamond shape. This will make them dissapear from the board. When blocks with the same element are adjacent they will dissapear as well. This move is called a combo. The player can perform a full combo matching all the same element blocks in the board.
When a group of blocks are matched and dissapear, the rest of the blocks in the board fall to fill the gaps those blocks left. A chain will occur if the player matches another group of blocks with these falling blocks.
Skills
The game has three different skills to benefit both beginners and advanced players. Each skill presents different features, that will make them suitable for different kind of abilities.
- Beginner Auto-Max (Automatic Maximum)
This skill grants the beginner players special time when they achieve a special move. Any group of blocks the player matches during this time will grant the player more points than it usually would.
- Advanced Time Combo-Ex (Extended)
This skill is based on the combo ability, this means it will grant the player special combo time whenever a combo is performed. In this time, the player will gain more points for every special move achieved. This time can be extended by performing special moves.
- Time Chain SP (Super Cancel)
The third skill is special for expert W&W players. It grants the player special time for chains. The board freezes after a special move is performed for an amount of time depending on the difficulty of the move performed. This time will allow the player to rotate the blocks in a way they perform chains when they fall. If the player finds a chain before the time ends, the board can be dropped to add more time to the chain time and allow the player to use the spare time.
Characters
There are six different Video game character|characters in the game: Yuan, Hao, Amy, Rosewind, Rygard and even the GP2X is featured as a Video game character in W&W.
Yuan
Yuan-Hsi is generally in charge of the arts in the Computer and video games by Yuan Works. He likes traditional Asian arts like Calligraphy and Poetry, and apples. He also designs lots of games. He's in Wind and Water to hide from his younger brother, Hao. With the excuse of participating to test the game, he tries to get all the rest he can in the beautiful Asian scenery.
Hao
Yuan-Hao is in charge of most of the programming in the games by Yuan Works. But he is also quite a digital artist. Hao entered Wind and Water to seek help with the art because Yuan sleeps a lot. He is looking for Yuan’s dot-art student, Dot! to ask him to help with some of the graphics. Having a natural ability for puzzle games, Hao is probably the best contestant in Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles.
Amy
Amy is cheery girl who loves games, manga, and anime. She also likes Asian languages and culture. Amy loves online games and arcades; and holds herself well in RTS, puzzle and dancing games. She would like to be good at fighting games, but always gets beaten up pretty bad. She entered Wind and Water to ask Yuan Works to teach her how to create videogame and to prove Yuan that she is a great character addition to the Yuan Works roster and not just an afterthought!
Rosewind
The noble girl from Yuan Works’ first big RPG project comes to Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles to find her music box. Rosewind loves to read, misses her friends dearly when they’re away and worries much about them always. She has others in her mind before herself, and dislikes violence. The phenomena known as the Wind of Time has started to wreck havoc in her homeland, and while finding her treasured possession, she will try to understand the secret behind the power of the Wind and Void to see if it is in anyway related to the strange happenings.
Rygard
From the epic (but unfortunately never finished) Yuan Works game Tien Shia – The Underheaven, this mysterious and not very talkative young man appeared in Wind and Water. He came to Wind and Water to seek Yuan, and ask him why he doesn’t have a game to star in yet, when Tien Shia – The Underheaven is one of the oldest projects in Yuan Works, and has probably the greatest amount of effort and work in it.
Mr. GP2X
A guest personally invited by Yuan Works, the GP2X is the first console Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles will be in, and marks not only Yuan Works debut, but Yuan and Hao’s handheld console debut. Mr. GP2X likes videogames in general, Korean manga, and Korean drama. He wants to prove that superior processing power and an open mind will help him defeat any opponent in his way.
Credits
Art, graphics, animation, character design, fonts, music and sounds
Yuan-Hsi Chiang
Game design, concept, and planning
Yuan-Hao and Yuan-Hsi Chiang
Game programming, script writing, and game flow
Yuan-Hao Chiang, Alejandra Quirós, Mauricio Muñoz
