Brainbow is a game written in C++ using the SFML API which borrows some inspiration from Tetris in terms of blocks falling down from nowhere, which also has to magically disappear somehow to keep playing. The twist here is that the colours is what decides if blocks are going to disappear or not.

Each block is made up by 3 colour components: red, green and blue. If both red and green are full, they make the colour yellow (yes, we're talking in computer terms here, not real life ones).

Most blocks start out with one of the components filled, and will then radiate that colour onto nearby blocks after having been positioned, which will radiate further to their nearby blocks which will radiate further and so on, while getting weaker in strength for each iteration.
The goal is to fill all 3 components so that you get a white block. This block will then disappear and you will get points. The more points you get, the better.

There are also black blocks which will prevent your progress. As they have no colour they won't radiate any either, but will still need to fill all 3 components to disappear.

Screenshots:







Video:



Download:

Download here

Credits:

SFML team for the API
SoundJay for some sound effects
Epoq from Kahvi Collective for the background music

Now go enjoy some brainbows!

Quite a fascinating concept. I've never seen a puzzle game quite like this. The game is rather fun, although a little difficult. I find the music enchanting as well. Thanks for making it. ^^

A very nice game but you really could expand upon it:

1. Make an options menu for sound, SFX, and to turn the scrolling background off (either make it static, or maybe even whatever color the player chooses)

2. More music tracks please! If you need to use Myna as it's free: http://www.aviary.com/

3. Alternate game mode ideas:

*A mode where you try to make black squares instead of white

*Mirror mode, where each turn (piece) the blocks go either up or down and the objective is to not have the blocks touch the middle of the board (you might need to expand the board for this). You can also do this left to right.

*Have the blocks pulse to the music, or the background (which looks out of place anyway)

*Two player mode where each block that disappears and then reappears (drops automatically) on the other players side, you could even make this mode black vs white where each player makes their respective color sending that color to the other player to deal with

*Puzzle mode where you get X blocks and must clear the board with them

It's a decent casual game on it's own right now but it could easy be expanded as I've shown, good luck!

Thanks for the link with the free music. I will be sure to take a look into those as well. The reason there's only one track at the moment is that mp3's isn't natively supported within sfml, so I spent time looking free .ogg music instead (slightly tougher than anticipated in terms of finding something fitting). It should be possible to add mp3 support though, or simply convert the mp3 into ogg files, so I will be looking into the site.

Turning blocks into black as a reverse mean for a second player would be interesting. I also have entertained the thought of how it could be amusing with some network two player system. The thing with this is that it would probably be a bit of work, and would probably be a bit clumsy for the players in terms of connecting to each other as well. Just regular split screen could work as well, and I'll think about it.

My time at the moment is a bit limited though ( a reason why this is as basic as it is ), and I'd prioritize a puzzle mode before most other modes, as I'd would love to make some real puzzles here. Only trying to figure out what kind of format would be the most appropriate to use for it. With the current mode, it's impossible to remove all blocks at once, so would have to have to mark the "target" blocks by some special mean or something, so I'm wondering if there are some better ways of applying the concept. Like choosing one of the given tiles and simple give it a single colour and let it ripple through the rest like normal. This being done with a limited amount of colours to apply to the given blocks.

I will have to admit that the mirror mode you suggested sounded very fun when I first read about it, but it would quickly become problematic when you think about where the blocks should spawn. For it to go both up and down, it would have to spawn in the middle or so, but what if you build up a tower of blocks in the middle across the spawn point?
With some planning around how to work that out it sounds like a rather fun concept though.

Hopefully, I'll add some option menu as well (possibly allowing choice of alternative music as well as some settings)

I appreciate your feedback.

Split screen could work with one player using the arrow keys and the other using WASD to move the blocks on each side.

As for the mirror mode what you could do is expand the playing field and block off the spawn area, that way if either side touches in the player loses and therefore you don't have to worry about where to spawn the blocks.

I just speak from the design view of things, I'm not a programmer by any means so I have no clue how difficult it would be to do anything that I suggest.

If I come up with anything else I'll be sure to let you know.

Hm, actually:

*Perhaps have blocks randomly appear on the grid and have them freeze there (as in they don't fall down). These blocks could still be removed but get in the way of the player as well.

*Difficulty modes or even just difficulty options so players could even customize exactly how they want their games to be played out (like with or without frozen blocks).

*Rising Color mode (Could also be called Rainbow mode) - Every X turns (could be customized by the player) the grid is bounced up by one layer of random (or specific colors, again, could be left up to the player) blocks.

*Power ups that could do various things like remove rows, columns, etc.

That's some new ideas for you to chew on.