Mermaid Match

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 portrait-friendly casual match-3 puzzle game titled “Mermaid Match,” rendered as a colorful 2D/orthographic underwater scene. Use a full-screen deep-ocean background with a bright cyan-blue top fading to dark navy at the bottom, translucent wavy current lines, many softly drifting bubbles, and subtle floating bubble-ring particles. On desktop, show a large friendly cartoon mermaid floating on the left side of the play area: pink hair, pale face and torso, purple shell top, aqua/turquoise fish tail with a split fin, and a gentle bobbing animation. Hide the mermaid on narrow mobile screens so the board remains usable.

Place an 8-column by 8-row match-3 board on the right/center over a semi-transparent blue rectangular board backing. Each cell contains a glossy rounded-square sea tile with a white rim, gradient shine, shadow, and one of five hand-painted symbols: orange starfish, yellow seahorse, green turtle, purple smiling octopus, or faceted light-blue gem. Keep the tile spacing tight and the board large and readable. Tiles should animate smoothly when swapping, falling, and collapsing; a selected tile should enlarge slightly and gently rock/pulse.

At the top HUD, show a glassy blue “MOVES” panel at upper left, initially 17. Center a glassy objective banner with an icon and text such as “Collect 15 Starfish 0/15.” At upper right show a coin panel initially containing 120 coins. Along the right edge below it, show three clickable booster buttons with glossy blue styling and costs: ⚓ Anchor, cost 30; 💣 Bomb, cost 45; 🛟 Wheel, cost 25. Show temporary rounded blue message panels near the bottom for feedback.

Before play, display a large translucent blue modal card centered over the underwater scene and dimmed board. It has a large pale-yellow “Mermaid Match” heading, instructional text “Swap adjacent sea tiles. Match 4+ to make a pearl-beam tile that clears a whole row.” and a large yellow-orange raised button labeled “Dive In.” Starting the game hides the modal. If the player runs out of moves, show the same modal with a “Try Again” button.

Core interaction: the player selects one tile and then selects an orthogonally adjacent tile, by mouse or touch, to swap them. Only swaps that produce a match are accepted; otherwise swap the tiles back and display “Only swaps that make a match count.” A normal match is three or more identical symbols in a horizontal or vertical line. Clear all matched tiles, award 10 points per cleared tile multiplied by the chain number, award one coin per four cleared tiles, let tiles above fall downward, and spawn random new tiles from the top. Continue resolving cascades until no matches remain. Show brief white pop/burst effects on cleared tiles.

For matches of four or more, preserve one tile from the matched group as a special “pearl beam” version, visually indicated by a bright gold/pearl border and a horizontal beam stripe across the tile. Display “Pearl beam made! Match it to clear a row.” When a pearl-beam tile is included in a subsequent clear, fire a bright horizontal beam across its entire row and clear that whole row, then collapse and cascade normally. The game’s introductory copy says “Match 4+,” but the actual basic clear threshold is 3 and four-or-more creates the row-clearing special.

Use three sequential repeating objectives/levels. Level 1: 17 moves, collect 15 Starfish. Level 2: 13 moves, collect 18 Gems. Level 3: 15 moves, collect 20 Turtles. Track only cleared tiles of the current objective type toward the target, display progress in the objective banner, and when the target is reached award 35 bonus coins, show “Level complete! Bonus coins found in a shell.”, then advance to the next level with a freshly generated board. Generate starting boards without immediate matches. When moves reach zero before completing the objective, show “Out of moves! Try the level again.” and the Try Again modal. Restart the current level without resetting coins.

Implement boosters exactly as follows. Clicking Anchor costs 30 coins, enters tile-targeting mode, and tapping a tile clears its entire column with a beam effect. Clicking Bomb costs 45 coins, enters tile-targeting mode, and tapping a tile clears the selected 3-by-3 area, clipped to board edges, with a splash effect. Clicking Wheel costs 25 coins and immediately shuffles the current 64 tiles into a new pattern. Deduct costs only when affordable; otherwise show “Not enough coins for that booster.” Anchor and Bomb should resolve through the same clear, fall, cascade, scoring, objective, and end-state logic. Show selected booster emphasis and allow toggling targeting off.

Use a playful polished children’s-game art direction: rounded Baloo-like heavy typography, white/cyan borders, translucent glass panels, yellow reward buttons, strong soft shadows, saturated tropical underwater colors, glossy highlights, and friendly symbols. Keep all UI responsive: on mobile, reduce tile size and HUD dimensions, put the board toward the lower/right available space, retain the moves/objective/coins/boosters, and hide the mermaid if necessary. Include subtle animation for rising bubbles, the mermaid’s idle float, tile selection, tile movement, pops, and beam flashes. Do not add unrelated mechanics, enemies, timers, lives, or additional game modes.