This is an iOS port of Super Foul Egg, itself a clone of Puyo Puyo released for the Commodore Amiga in 1995. It is a port of the OSX version, which was a re-write of Really Bad Eggs, which was itself a remake of Super Foul Egg for the Nintendo DS.
Coloured eggs drop down the screen in pairs. They can be rotated in clockwise and anticlockwise directions. The objective is to arrange eggs of the same colour so that their edges touch and the eggs connect. When four or more eggs of the same colour are connected in a chain, the eggs disappear from the grid and any eggs above them drop down to fill the vacated space. A number of garbage eggs is dumped into the opponent's grid corresponding to the number of eggs removed. The amount of garbage eggs increases dramatically if:
- More than four eggs are connected in a single chain;
- Several chains are removed at once;
- The removal of a chain causes eggs to fall, which in turn makes additional chains of eggs.
Super Foul Egg features two basic game types. The first is a single-player practice mode. Play continues until the grid fills with eggs to the point that no more eggs can be placed.
The second is a two-player mode against the CPU. Each time chains are made in this mode, garbage eggs are dumped into the opponent's grid.
A two-player mode that uses an adhoc local network between two iPads is in the works.
When the game starts a menu system is presented. Tap the options to select them.
The menus are as follows:
- Game Type: Choose from the practice game type or easy/medium/hard/insane player-vs-AI types.
- Speed: Choose the speed at which the eggs drop down the grid. Faster speeds mean less time to think.
- Height: Choose the starting height. The number corresponds to the rows of garbage eggs added to the grid at the start of the game. More rows mean the game is initially faster paced and harder.
- Colours: The number of different colours of eggs in the game. Each additional colour reduces the chance of a particular colour egg being created, making it more difficult to set up elaborate sequences of egg chains.
- Best Of: The number of games per match.
- Move shape left: Swipe left
- Move shape right: Swipe right
- Drop shape: Swipe down with two fingers
- Rotate clockwise: Tap
- Rotate anticlockwise: Tap with two fingers
- Pause: Tap the pause icon (bottom-right of the screen)
- Exit: Tap the exit icon (top-right of the screen)
Garbage eggs are grey eggs that do not connect with any other eggs. The only way to remove a garbage egg from the grid is to remove another egg adjacent to it.
The number of garbage eggs generated by chains is calculated via two forumulae. For the first group of chains the formula is:
blocks - 3
If the player creates a chain of 5 blocks, the garbage created is:
5 - 3 = 2
If the player creates a chain of 5 blocks and a chain of 6 blocks simultaneously, the garbage created is:
5 + 6 - 3 = 8
In subsequent groups of chains, the formula is as follows:
blocks - 4 + 6
So, if the player creates a chain of 5 blocks, which falls to create a chain of 7 blocks, the formulae are:
5 - 3 = 2 (first chain)
7 - 4 + 6 = 9 (second chain)
= 11 (total)
Each successive version of Super Foul Egg makes tweaks and changes from the version that preceded it. Differences from the OSX version are:
- The AI is multithreaded for extra speed;
- The control system is designed specifically for a touch screen device;
- The two-player mode is currently unavailable;
- Hard drop (eggs drop automatically when swiped down) is forced on and soft drop is not available.
To play the game you will need an iPad running iOS 5.0. It's tricky to play on the simulator as it's designed around touch gestures, but it's playable. To compile the sourcecode you will need at least Xcode 4.6.
- Coding, reverse engineering and remixing - Antony Dzeryn
- Original graphics and sounds - David & Michael Hay
- Simian Zombie logo - John Clay
Contact me at ant@simianzombie.com.