Amoebax

About the game

Amoebax is a falling-pairs puzzle, in the tradition of the colored-blob games where two pieces drop together, with cheerful amoebas as the pieces. Pairs of amoebas fall into your grid and you steer them as they land. When four or more of the same color touch, they pop; the amoebas above them fall in, and if that makes a new group of four, you get a chain.

The fun is in the fight. Your grid sits next to your opponent's, and the pops you make, and especially the chains, send junk amoebas over to their grid. The first player whose grid fills up to the top loses.

There are three ways to play. In the normal mode you choose Kim or Tom and face the computer's six creatures one after the other, each with a look and a background of its own. A training mode lets you play alone with no one pushing junk at you, and a tournament mode lets up to four players compete to find out who is the master of the amoebas. The creatures get harder as you beat them.

Amoebax was written by Jordi Fita for Emma's Software in 2006 and 2007. The graphics are by Safareig Creatiu and the music and sound by Àlex Almarza.

Playing it here

This is Amoebax 0.2.1 compiled for the browser from the authors' source code, with the music, graphics and sounds that come with it. The download is about 11 MB. The options, the keys you set and the high scores are kept in this browser; clearing this site's data deletes them. The game is in English. Click the Start button first: the browser only lets the game play sound after a click.

Some options of the original, like full screen and the choice of screen size, are still in the options menu, but only the default size is meant for the page. The game was made for a window of a fixed size, which the page scales to fit.

Controls

Against the computer you play the left grid, with the first player's keys. In training mode both sets of keys work. The keys can be changed in the "players control setup" screen of the Options menu, and a gamepad can be assigned to either side there.

Getting started

Try the training mode first. It is the first item of the menu and has no opponent, so you can learn how the pair turns and how the chains form without the junk piling up.

Look at the next pair. The pair that comes after the one you are steering is shown beside the grid, so you can plan where each color will go.

Then face the creatures. The normal mode starts easy and gets harder with each creature.

Tips

Build chains, not just groups. Popping four at a time works, but a chain, where one pop makes another, sends a lot more junk. Keep colors in layers so the amoebas above fall into a new group.

Keep the middle low. New pairs appear near the middle of the top of the grid. If the stacks there reach the top you lose, even when there is room on the sides.

Deal with the junk. Junk amoebas do not pop like the colored ones, so clear them by popping groups next to them instead of leaving them for later.

FAQ

Can two people play? Yes: the tournament mode lets up to four people take turns, and the two sets of keys let two people share one keyboard (gamepads work too).