When I was a kid, I played a ton of Sega Swirl on the Dreamcast. I miss those times.

My older brother used to head over to the bookstore (Barnes & Nobles!) everytime a new issue of the Official Dreamcast Magazine came out. Like many gaming magazines of that era, it came bundled with a disc featuring demos of the latest and upcoming games.

This is how I stumbled upon Sega Swirl. It was a full game that was included on one of the included Dreamcast magazine discs. Little did I know that it would become a formative part of my gaming life at the time.

Each day, after school, I would be playing this game. Something about its simplicity, the satisfaction of making swirls disappear, and the judgmental snake friend (on the bottom left of the screen) kept me coming back. This would be my weekday ritual right up until I left home for college.

When I started thinking about trying my hand at creating my own puzzle game, Sega Swirl was the first thing that came to mind. And upon some research, it looks like Sega Swirl was just one game out of a whole collection of games. Apparently, the original concept came from a Japanese tile-matching game from the ’80s called Same Game (さめがめ, or sa-me ga-me), according to wikipedia

So, when I set off to create puzzle thing, I thought about the key elements I enjoyed from games like Sega Swirl and Same Game, and I narrowed it down to these three things:

1. Easy to grasp. Matching blocks shouldn’t feel like rocket science. The mechanics are straightforward, and didn’t require a lot of effort to get started.
2. Relaxing and low-pressure: I’ve never been a fan of time limits or being constantly reminded of how long I took. I wanted a game that offered a low-stress, chill experience.
3. Simple rewards. Matching blocks is its own high, and there’s something inherently satisfying about it. Matching larger sets of blocks feels better!

But most of all, I wanted to capture something I remember fondly: the quiet times right after school of matching swirly bits, scoring high, and enjoying life in the present moment.