🌲 How To Play 🌲
Objective
The object of the game is to get three or more of the same
animal in a row, either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
When this happens, you earn points and the matching animals
disappear. Any animals above those that disappear will fall to
create new matches until no further matches occur.
Players begin with 3 lives. If the animals reach the top
of the screen a life is lost until the player has no lives
remaining and the game is over. For every 100,000 points
scored, players earn an additional life. The game levels up every
50 matches, at which point the animals will fall a little
faster.
Scoring
You score 100 points each for the first three animals to
disappear in a match and 150 points for each additional
animal. After the first round of matches disappear, successive
matches are scored as above and multiplied by the round
in which the matches occurred. Look out for these opportunities.
Pressing the space bar will drop the current triplet of
animals as far as they can fall. Doing so will earn you 10
points for every row the triplet falls before coming to rest. It's
best to capitalise on this control early on while the animals are
falling slowly. These points will dry up as the pace quickens.
Animals
There are 7 different animals that will fall during the game:
the bird, rabbit, ladybird, fox, frog, lizard, and duck. All of
the animals are worth 100 points each. The next version of
the game will add new animals when the player passes 25,000
and 50,000 points respectively. But which animals?
Unicorns will fall sporadically and at random throughout
the game. Unicorns are a multi-coloured wildcard triplet that always
fall together. When they come to rest on an animal, every instance of
that animal will follow the unicorns and disappear from the screen,
regardless of their position.
🌲 Controls 🌲
Game Controls
Up
Toggle Order
Down
Move Down
Space
Drop
Left
Move Left
Right
Move Right
Special Keys
alt + n
New Game
alt + p
Pause Game
alt + e
End Game
alt + m
Toggle Music
alt + s
Toggle Sound
🌲 About 🌲
For Teddy
Forest Friends is inspired by the 1992 Macintosh game Jewelbox, which itself was based on Sega's Columns (1990). For Jewelbox gameplay, see YouTube.
Jewelbox is one of many Macintosh games that made me fall in love with computers. To this day, when I hear the music, I immediately feel more relaxed.
This version was built from scratch using vanilla JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, and all gameplay takes place inside the versatile HTML <canvas> element.
Forest Friends pays homage to an enduring classic of my youth. May you find similar joy amidst the many animals that call this peaceful forest home.
