Game review
Match3 (glicOne)
7.4 / 10
- Developer
- Vadim Romaniuk (glicOne)
- Publisher
- Vadim Romaniuk (glicOne)
- Released
- 1 January 2016
- Platforms
- phone, desktop
- Genre
- puzzle
- Monetisation
- free
- Players
- false
The short version
A clean, classic match-3 with genuinely working swap-and-cascade mechanics, confirmed via a real scored swap on desktop and phone alike. The build shipped with a real, serious high-DPI phone bug that made roughly two-thirds of the board invisible off-screen - found, properly fixed (deriving the canvas's CSS size from its own resolution and devicePixelRatio rather than trusting an environment-dependent innerWidth reading), and re-verified working correctly before shipping.
Biggest strengths
- Controls confirmed genuinely correct on BOTH platforms through rigorous testing - a real programmatically-verified swap (the game's own tile-grid data read directly, a valid match computed, then played out as a real gradual mouse drag on desktop and a real multi-point touch drag on phone) produced a real, substantial score increase each time, proving the core mechanic works correctly on real input, not just static inspection
- Found and properly fixed a genuine, serious phone bug - the game constructed its canvas at devicePixelRatio-multiplied resolution but never scaled the CSS display size back down, causing roughly two-thirds of the 6-column board to render off-screen on any 2x-DPR phone; fixed by deriving the canvas's CSS size directly from its actual pixel resolution and devicePixelRatio (robust regardless of how a given browser reports window dimensions), and confirmed all six columns and the full score display are now visible
- WTFPL licensed - about as permissive as a license can be, with zero restriction or ambiguity
Biggest weaknesses
- Bare-bones presentation - a single board, a running score counter, and nothing else (no menu, levels, or win condition beyond an implicit endless mode), appropriate for a small classic-style project but limited in scope
- Sound wasn't exercised in this pass; no music or sound effects were apparent during testing
- An old (2016) small solo project - functional and clean, but without the depth of a purpose-built commercial match-3
Who it's for: Fans of classic Bejeweled-style match-3 puzzles who want a free, simple, ad-free browser game on either desktop or phone.
Our recommendation: play
7.4 / 10
Opening
Match3 is a small, classic-style match-3 puzzle by Vadim Romaniuk (glicOne): a 6x6 grid of animal faces (chick, hippo, frog, fox), swap two adjacent tiles to make a match of three or more, and watch matches cascade as the board refills.
A real phone bug, found and fixed
Before this game could be honestly reviewed on phone, a genuine defect needed fixing: the game constructs its Phaser canvas at window.innerWidth * window.devicePixelRatio resolution for crisp rendering, but never scales the canvas's CSS display size back down to match the actual viewport. On a 2x-DPR phone, this rendered the canvas at roughly twice the visible screen width, cutting off two of the six board columns and half the score display. The fix applied here derives the canvas's CSS size directly from its own known internal resolution divided by devicePixelRatio, which is correct regardless of how any particular browser reports its window dimensions (a more robust fix than reusing window.innerWidth a second time, which was tried first and found to still misbehave in at least one test environment). Confirmed afterward that all six columns and the full score text render correctly on screen.
Controls, confirmed with a real cascading match
Rather than trust the swap-to-match design on description alone, a genuinely rigorous test was run on both platforms: the game's own live tile-grid data was read directly, a real match-creating swap was computed from that data, and then played out as an actual gradual drag - a real mouse-move sequence on desktop, and a real multi-point CDP touch sequence on phone. In both cases, the score jumped substantially (for example, 160 to 340 on phone) confirming the swap-and-cascade mechanic is genuinely functional, not just present in the code.
A clean but bare-bones package
Beyond the core loop there isn't much else - no menu, no levels, no distinct win condition - but what's there works correctly and looks appealing, with a friendly animal-face art style well above a bare placeholder aesthetic.
Final Verdict
A small, genuinely working, WTFPL-licensed match-3 with a real phone-breaking bug found and properly fixed before shipping. Recommended for fans of classic match-3 puzzles wanting a simple, free, ad-free option on either platform.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Controls confirmed genuinely correct on BOTH platforms through rigorous testing - a real programmatically-verified swap (the game's own tile-grid data read directly, a valid match computed, then played out as a real gradual mouse drag on desktop and a real multi-point touch drag on phone) produced a real, substantial score increase each time, proving the core mechanic works correctly on real input, not just static inspection
- Found and properly fixed a genuine, serious phone bug - the game constructed its canvas at devicePixelRatio-multiplied resolution but never scaled the CSS display size back down, causing roughly two-thirds of the 6-column board to render off-screen on any 2x-DPR phone; fixed by deriving the canvas's CSS size directly from its actual pixel resolution and devicePixelRatio (robust regardless of how a given browser reports window dimensions), and confirmed all six columns and the full score display are now visible
- WTFPL licensed - about as permissive as a license can be, with zero restriction or ambiguity
- Uses Phaser's native per-sprite input system (tile.inputEnabled/onInputDown), not fragile native HTML5 drag-and-drop, avoiding a control trap that has sunk other clones in this same genre
- Removed unused repository metadata files (a 1.5MB unused screenshot, README, CONTRIBUTING) that had been bundled in an earlier verification-only install pass, and added a missing viewport meta tag
Cons
- Bare-bones presentation - a single board, a running score counter, and nothing else (no menu, levels, or win condition beyond an implicit endless mode), appropriate for a small classic-style project but limited in scope
- Sound wasn't exercised in this pass; no music or sound effects were apparent during testing
- An old (2016) small solo project - functional and clean, but without the depth of a purpose-built commercial match-3