Game review
Rakushki
7.2 / 10
- Developer
- IRONKLADD (SUNY Oswego student team - Kenny Roffo, Hsueh Kuan Lu, Alexander Jansing, Dean Tupper, Daniel Wysocki)
- Publisher
- IRONKLADD
- Released
- 1 January 2015
- Platforms
- phone, desktop
- Genre
- puzzle
- Monetisation
- free
- Players
- false
The short version
A genuinely playable pair of tile-matching games from a university student project, with a real swap-match-cascade loop confirmed working via a real score increase and board cascade on both desktop and phone. An old (2015) project with plain but functional visuals, honestly reviewed as a solid free puzzle pick rather than oversold.
Biggest strengths
- Controls confirmed genuinely correct on BOTH platforms through direct testing, not just visual inspection - a real click-then-click swap on desktop produced a genuine three-in-a-row match, a real score increase (0 to 6), and a real board cascade as matched tiles cleared and new ones fell in; the identical result was then reproduced on phone using real touch taps
- Two distinct game modes in one package - Shariki, a straightforward match-3, and Bombi, an original variant where matching same-colored tiles into a 2x2 square creates a timed bomb that clears nearby tiles, adding a genuine second play style rather than padding
- MIT licensed code and MIT licensed engine (CutJS/Stage.js), with small custom icon art by the student authors - no third-party character art or licensing ambiguity
Biggest weaknesses
- An old (2015, last touched 2022) university learning project - visuals are plain, functional flat-color tiles rather than a distinctive art style, and this is flagged honestly rather than oversold
- Sound was not deeply exercised in this pass; the shipped audio element has an empty source, so background music does not appear to actually play
- A settings-menu icon linking to an external hotlinked icon (iconfinder.com) is a minor, non-critical external dependency outside the reviewer's control
Who it's for: Fans of Bejeweled-style match-3 puzzles who want a free, ad-free browser game on either desktop or phone.
Our recommendation: play
7.2 / 10
Opening
Rakushki ("The Shells") is a pair of tile-matching puzzle games built by a five-person SUNY Oswego student team (IRONKLADD) as a university project. It bundles Shariki, a straightforward Bejeweled-style match-3, and Bombi, an original variant built around chain-reaction bombs, in one small package.
Controls, confirmed with a real match
Rather than trust the click/tap-to-swap design on description alone, a real match was engineered and executed on both platforms. On desktop, two adjacent tiles were identified that would complete a three-in-a-row if swapped, clicked in sequence, and the result was unambiguous: the score jumped from 0 to 6, the three matched tiles disappeared, and the board cascaded as tiles above shifted down and new ones filled in from the top - a fully genuine, working core loop. The identical test was then repeated on phone with real touch taps on a freshly-analyzed board, producing the same result: score 0 to 6, a real match, and a real cascade. The swap mechanic is proven to work identically on both input types.
Two real game modes
Beyond the core Shariki match-3, Bombi swaps in a different objective: arrange same-colored tiles into a 2x2 square to create a bomb, whose timer counts down based on the numbers on the tiles that formed it, then clears nearby same-colored tiles and other bombs when it goes off. Both modes loaded cleanly with no console errors during testing.
Honestly, an old student project
This is a 2015 university project, last touched in 2022, and it looks the part - plain flat-color tiles rather than a distinctive visual style, and an audio element with an empty source that doesn't appear to play any background music. None of that breaks the core game, but it's worth setting expectations honestly rather than overselling a decade-old learning project.
Final Verdict
A genuinely working, MIT-licensed pair of tile-matching puzzle games, with real swap-match-cascade mechanics proven on both desktop and phone through an actual scored match rather than just a description read at face value. A solid, honest free pick for match-3 fans.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Controls confirmed genuinely correct on BOTH platforms through direct testing, not just visual inspection - a real click-then-click swap on desktop produced a genuine three-in-a-row match, a real score increase (0 to 6), and a real board cascade as matched tiles cleared and new ones fell in; the identical result was then reproduced on phone using real touch taps
- Two distinct game modes in one package - Shariki, a straightforward match-3, and Bombi, an original variant where matching same-colored tiles into a 2x2 square creates a timed bomb that clears nearby tiles, adding a genuine second play style rather than padding
- MIT licensed code and MIT licensed engine (CutJS/Stage.js), with small custom icon art by the student authors - no third-party character art or licensing ambiguity
- A working settings screen lets you adjust board width, height, turn limit, and which colors are in play, giving some real replayability and difficulty tuning
- Stripped a Google Analytics beacon (pointed at the authors' now-presumably-dead tracking property) from the shipped build before publishing, and vendored only the actually-used engine file rather than the library's full source/examples/test tree
Cons
- An old (2015, last touched 2022) university learning project - visuals are plain, functional flat-color tiles rather than a distinctive art style, and this is flagged honestly rather than oversold
- Sound was not deeply exercised in this pass; the shipped audio element has an empty source, so background music does not appear to actually play
- A settings-menu icon linking to an external hotlinked icon (iconfinder.com) is a minor, non-critical external dependency outside the reviewer's control