Christina Chronicles

Cinevva's analyzer read this game's design doc and its source, then wrote the brief below. "Make your own" hands it to the game creator as your opening message, so you start from a real spec rather than a one-line idea.

Create a responsive browser-based story-driven match-3 adventure called “Christina Chronicles,” presented as “Around the World in 1700 Stages.” The game should feel like a polished, editorial travel scrapbook: warm parchment/cream background, deep forest green and muted gold typography, elegant serif display headings mixed with clean sans-serif UI, thin borders, soft shadows, paper/card textures, travel photos and illustrated destination artwork. It is a single-page app with hash-style navigation and progress saved locally on the device.

Overall structure and story: Christina is a camera-carrying traveler following a mysterious letter from her friend Eleanor in search of the missing rare book “The Atlas of Unfinished Journeys.” The journey begins at an airport, then proceeds through roughly 100 destination chapters and exactly 1,700 ordered stages, ending at Home. Each chapter has a name, country/region, stage range, local character, missing keepsake/clue, hook, and a light witty travel quip. The itinerary travels through England, the Americas, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia before returning home. At chapter starts, show a modal comic/story sequence of four illustrated panels with speech-like captions and narrative text; the first chapter introduces Eleanor’s letter, Christina packing, England, and Mara needing help finding a boarding pass. Later chapters introduce the destination, the character’s quest, a quip, and the next lead. Use the supplied artwork where available: Christina portrait, airport image, reference/home artwork, destination illustrations and backgrounds, comic pages, stamp/selfie/piece art. If exact assets cannot be imported, recreate the same visual motifs with tasteful travel photography/illustration placeholders rather than changing the layout.

Top-level UI: fixed/visible header with a compass-like symbol and the title “THE CHRISTINA CHRONICLES,” subtitle “Around the World in 1700 Stages,” a five-heart lives display at upper right, and a circular profile/avatar button. Beneath it, a navigation bar with Home, World map, Stamp Album, SelfBook, Comic Book, Shop, and Leaderboard. Footer includes creator credit, “Browser prototype · Progress saved on this device,” a quiet-moment control, and sound toggle. Use accessible buttons, labels, dialogs, and responsive behavior for desktop and mobile.

Home screen: use a large hero panel with a full-bleed travel image or collage, dark translucent gradient for readable text, Christina’s portrait/photo on the right and a small taped label reading “THE WORLD IS WAITING.” Left side shows the eyebrow “A WORLD OF STORIES. ONE EXTRAORDINARY JOURNEY.”, large title “Around the World in 1700 Stages,” description “A mysterious letter. A book nobody can find. And a whole world between you and the answer.”, and a primary button that says “Begin your journey →” for a new player or “Continue your journey →” after progress exists. Show the first/next chapter and stage beneath it. Include three collection links/cards for “Your world in stamps,” “Faces along the way,” and “A story worth keeping,” plus the tagline “Match. Explore. Collect.”

Player/profile and progression: on first play, open a passport-style dialog asking “What should we call you?” with a 3–20 character traveler name. The player plays as Christina but chooses a local profile name. Start with 5 lives; a failed stage consumes one life and a life regenerates every hour, up to 5. If no lives remain, show a recharge dialog with remaining time and a link to explore the map/books. Save highest completed stage, completed stages, name, lives/timer, chapter story-seen state, avatar/frame, active attempts, best scores and total points in local storage. Ordered story progression unlocks the next stage/chapter, while the map can expose preview/practice access to chapters without advancing story. Completed chapters unlock destination stamps, character portraits/selfies and frames.

Core gameplay: implement a  match-3 board of 8 columns by 8 rows with six themed piece types. Pieces are destination/theme appropriate, with supplied sprite sheets or emoji-like visual equivalents: travel uses suitcase, airplane, camera, compass, ticket and book; stone uses carved stone, amber, blue gem, spiral, vase and rock; desert uses cactus, sun, amber, vase, compass and rock; cave uses gem, lantern, rock, crystal, vase and spiral; forest uses leaf, flower, wood, butterfly, apple and herb; water uses shell, water, coral, fish, gem and spiral; museum uses vase, painting, scroll, gem, book and coin; home uses camera, book, letter, flower, tea and suitcase. Board pieces should be large, tactile, rounded or illustrated tokens on a parchment-toned play area.

Controls and rules: select one tile then an orthogonally adjacent tile to swap; only accept swaps that create a match. Match 3 or more horizontally/vertically to clear pieces, score points, collapse columns downward and refill with random pieces. Automatically resolve cascades. Include a hint control and a shuffle control with a limited number of shuffles. Show a readable board note and controls for moves, score, objective and stage. Objectives vary by stage: clear required counts of selected piece types; later stages are harder. The final two stages of each chapter are marked as hard, and the final stage is timed. Timed stages show a countdown and fail when time expires. Winning a stage displays a completion modal, advances highest-stage progress, awards points and a bonus based on unused moves; replaying completed stages keeps the best score. Losing displays a retry/recharge outcome.

Special match bonuses: matching five creates a rainbow/color compass that can be activated and then used on another piece to clear every tile of that color. A square of four creates a flying keepsake/bird bonus that targets and clears a random additional piece. A horizontal line of four creates a horizontal flare clearing its row; a vertical line of four creates a vertical flare clearing its column. Visually distinguish specials with emblem overlays and explain them in the board note. Specials can chain, trigger cascades, animate toward targets, and be preserved through a shuffle. Display feedback such as “Cascade ×2!”, “Color compass,” “Flying keepsake,” and pieces collected.

World map: create a book/atlas-style map page titled “Around the World in 1700 Stages,” with search by destination, country or stage, visited count, paginated grid of destination cards, chapter number, destination illustration, stage range and country. Completed locations show their artwork and allow opening/download of wallpaper; locked locations show “Continue your journey” or “Complete earlier stages.” Selecting a chapter opens a detail dialog with hook, character quest, art, and a grid of every stage; mark the last stage timed and the penultimate stage hard.

Collections: Stamp Album is a paper album of destination stamps, paginated, with 24 locations per page; uncollected stamps are visibly muted/locked and completed ones use destination stamp artwork and can be opened/downloaded. SelfBook is a scrapbook/polaroid grid of six character-and-Christina portraits per page, with locked entries until their location is completed. Comic Book is a chapter-by-chapter illustrated reading experience using four panels per story chapter and the chapter’s narrative captions. Preserve the warm paper, album leaves, page headings, pagination and collectible feeling.

Shop and leaderboard: Shop page is explicitly a preview/no-purchase screen with cards for “Remove ads forever,” “Unlimited lives · 1 day,” “Unlimited lives · 1 week,” and “Change traveler name,” prices shown in euros, and a dialog explaining that no payment or entitlement is activated. Leaderboard is local-device only, with tabs for Highest stage and Total points, a ranked table of traveler names, current player highlighted, and explanatory text that points are the sum of best scores and ties favor the traveler who reached the result first.

Use gentle page transitions, modal dialogs for passport/story/chapter/completion interactions, responsive scaling so the board and books fit the viewport, and no combat or action-game elements. The experience should emphasize collecting memories, discovering places, following clues, and gradually building Christina’s travel archive.