X-masmatch

About the game

A grid of cards lies face down, and the clock is running. Click a card to flip it, then another: if the two match you have found a pair and a second is added to your time; if not, they turn back over and a second is taken away. Clear all the pairs before the time runs out and you win.

The cards show twelve Christmas characters and things, and which ones appear is random each time: Santa Claus, a Christmas tree, a present, a snowman, a reindeer, a dromedary, one of the Three Wise Men (Balthasar), a nativity figure, bunches of grapes, the clock of the Puerta del Sol in Madrid (where Spaniards eat twelve grapes at midnight on New Year's Eve), and two traditional characters, the Tió de Nadal from Catalonia and Olentzero from the Basque Country. Snow falls across the title and the menu.

There are five levels: Easy (4 by 3 cards, 40 on the clock), Medium (6 by 4, 60), Hard (8 by 4, 60), Very hard (8 by 6, 70) and HELL! (12 by 6, 100). The idea is simple and the clock gives it a bite, because a wrong guess costs time and the bigger grids ask for a good memory.

Playing it here

The first time you click Play the page downloads Pyxel and the Python runtime (about 15 MB), which takes a few seconds; after that the game shows a "click to start" prompt, and one more click starts it with sound. Nothing is loaded from other sites, and nothing is saved.

On the web we took out the Exit button of the main menu and turned off the Esc key that closes the game on the desktop, because on a web page they would only freeze the screen. The pause menu still has "Exit", which goes back to the main menu.

Controls

A few things worth knowing

Look at both cards before they flip back. They stay up for a moment; use it to remember where each one was.

A pair gives back time. Each match adds one to the clock (and each miss takes one away), so a good run can last longer than the starting time.

Start on Easy. The small grid is a good way to learn the twelve pictures before the bigger ones, which fit more of them at once.

Frequently asked questions

What happens when time runs out? A "Maybe next time" message appears; click to go back to the main menu.

What is the clock on the Puerta del Sol? A famous clock in Madrid. In Spain, people eat twelve grapes with its twelve chimes at midnight on New Year's Eve, which is why grapes and the clock are in the game.

Does it work on a phone? The game was made for a keyboard or a game pad. The page offers an on-screen pad on touch devices, but we have not tested the game with it.

Why does it say "click to start"? Browsers only allow sound after you interact with the page, so the Pyxel launcher asks for one click before it starts the game.

Is it free? Yes: the game's code is free software under the GNU GPL (version 3 or later), the graphics are in the public domain (CC0), and the source of this build is available from this page.

Credits and licence

X-masmatch was made by Son Link (Alfonso Saavedra), who wrote the code (GNU GPL version 3 or later) and drew most of the sprites (public domain / CC0). Three characters (Jesus, the dromedary and the reindeer) come from the CC0 packs Tiny Dungeon by Kenney and Tiny Creatures by Clint Bellanger (both on OpenGameArt), and the snowflakes come from Pixel Art Snowflakes by alxl (public domain / CC0). The font is Retro Pixel Cute Mono by TakWolf, under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. The build served here removes the Exit button of the main menu and turns off the Esc key that quits; the change is published as a patch with the complete source of the build. Note that the game has a nativity figure among its cards, since it is a Christmas game. It runs on the Pyxel engine (MIT) and the Pyodide runtime (MPL-2.0), whose licences and source are linked from the Licenses page.