Spirit Swap: Lofi Beats to Match-3 To

Spirit Swap: Lofi Beats to Match-3 To is an indie game available on itch.io and Steam for around 20€. Developped by softnotweak with music from Meltycanon. A demo is available on the storefront pages.

Disclaimer: I got the game as part of a bundle

It’s chill, it’s queer and so very charming. I would describe it as a mix of a match-3 type of game with a visual novel aspect to it.

I will mostly talk about the first half of the game, which is more story-driven and linear. It introduces all the characters and mechanics.

Gameplay

The main match-3 gameplay is quite different from what I expected. I am not that much a match-3 player to begin with so, in my mind, match-3 rings “Bejewled” or “Candy Crush”, games where you have to match-3 by swapping two different adjacent pieces (left, right, up, down) so as to make a match at every turn. Here, it is more time-based than turn-based, and is reminiscent of Puyo Puyo. Blocks (spirits, in this game) fall from the sky, and you have to eliminate them. The catch is you can only swap 2 spirits if they are at the same height. So only left/right, not up/down. To move blocks vertically, you have to make use of the gravity. If spirits reach the top, you loose. Furthermore, all the gameplay is in a versus mode. So, if you can make more moves in the same amount of time, you have an advantage. And eliminating big hunks of spirits at the same time sends trash blocks that are more difficult to remove to the opponent. To help you, you have 3-different powers that are linked with specific conformations of spirits you remove (a squre, a + sign, a × sign) that you can customize.

On top of that, there are 3 different difficulty settings: Chill (“Easy”), which was too easy for me, Spicy (“Medium”), a good middle ground for me and Sheesh (“Hard”), too difficult for me. These, as far as I know, increase the number of colors you have to manage, the input speed needed to compete with the CPU and the overall level of skill of the CPU. In there, I find that the game strikes a good balance. It’s quite easy to pick up, has a good progression curve and difficulty levels to accomodate every skill level. It can be very chill or very challenging, depending on what you’re looking for and how good you are.

Characters

I found the characters quite diverse in personality, all very charming and human in their own way. I feel that some people would criticize the cast for being too “woke”, but I appreciated having a truly diverse cast of characters.

Something I really enjoyed about the character design is that, while being overtly very queer, the game doesn’t make a big deal of it. Yeah, they are BIPOC queer character but most importantly they are just silly human goofballs. Every character seems like they would be good company, and that if further reinforced by their voice-acted dialogues.

Special mention to “The Polycule”. The way it was presented, without further context and with this specific capitalization, I thought of it for a brief moment as some sort of Greek mythology entity, like the Moirai. Very cool.

It is also possible to romance the different characters after the main story bit.

I won’t go into more detail here as I don’t want to spoil anything if you want to play the game!

Graphics

The game is very, very cheerful, and this is something you feel on every single screen of the game. It’s bright, it’s colorful, it’s got stars, sprinkles, cute smiley 3-eyed cubes, I just love it.

The animations are bouncy, soft, smooth, it pops.

Music

Well, the title is not misleading here, it’s lofi beats, and it’s chill!

Usually, I’m not a big fan of lofi, precisely because it is low fidelity and it feels bad to listen to on headphones. It lacks bass, treble and depth. Here, you can feel the inspiration of lofi, it’s very chill indeed, but it has a bit more acoustic depth, allowing the player to be fully immersed in the music, vibing to it while getting to learn the characters or eliminating spirits! I often found myself bobbing my head to the beat while playing, even when I was fully focused.

If you want more of the music, it’s available on bandcamp.

Conclusion

Overall, I feel like Spirit Swap: Lofi Beats to Match-3 To is a very good game which delivers on its promise. If you enjoy match-3 games, if you just want to chill for a while, it’s definitely a good choice.