So, how did this game come to be?

Hao and I had always wanted to make a puzzle game. But we wanted something a little more ambitious than ones currently available. We wanted one that had a very strong and competitive two player mode. One where skill, practice of difficult moves, and strategy would dictate the winner, much like in a good fighting game. On the other hand, we also wanted to include a story mode unlike anything ever seen in a puzzle game before.

The Story Mode of this game is perhaps its most original feature

We already knew the basics that we wanted: a game with combos and chains. Combos that could be constructed with speed and planning. And chains that didn’t happen by chance, but rather by skill. Also, we didn’t want anything precipitating all the time from the top of the screen. We wanted to have the whole board available from the very beginning to let players start making strong moves right away.

But what did we feel was missing from other puzzle games in terms of gameplay?

One of the greatest puzzle games ever made!

Hexic was too much based on strategy, which made it a little slow for action battles. Bejeweled had nice chains, but it was hard to set them up even with skills. Super Puzzle Fighter II X (Turbo) had a big percentage of chance going on: even great players sometimes lost matches because of bad luck. Panel de Pon (Tetris Attack) had an overall excellent battle system, but combos and other moves became rather useless to experienced players, who rely exclusively on chains, of which you eventually run out.

We refer to the traditional pixel graphics that compose many of the elements in 2D games, such as Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles, as sprites. Sorry, no soft drinks!

(If you order Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles you can choose to have a custom W&W style sprite character based on you! You just need to send us a picture of yourself!)

What’s so special about a sprite?

A sprite requires the unusual skill to be able to draw using little squares with resolution and color restrictions. Sadly, this skill is deteriorating greatly in the West, and there are very few people who can still produce high quality pixel art there. The recently released Contra 4 and upcoming Noitu Love 2 by Joakim Sandberg are excellent examples (so be sure to support projects like these if you love this art)!