I like to work with new platforms. Exploring their unique affordances is interesting as a designer; what can I do with this? is a fun question to answer. Thus, I was happy to have the chance to work with Sam Von Ehren and Zach Barash on a game made with Move38’s forthcoming Blinks.

In Skiplight, two cooperating players race against time to get waves of color to meet at specified points. Each player has a red, yellow, and blue source. To score a green tile, one player must to send out blue and the other yellow, timing the waves so that they reach the green tile at the same time. You can see an example in the video below.

Scored tiles become barriers to future waves, and so the waves’ motion becomes harder to manage as the game progresses. In addition, after scoring players must reposition one of the tiles, connecting it to the group in a new location. The board starts out in a simple configuration that makes predicting the waves’ motion easy; with each repositioning and added barrier, mistakes get easier. Players need to keep a cool head with time running out to get a high score.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the greatest joy of Skiplight was the intrinsic fun of pushing buttons to create waves of color. The game was a pleasure to work on, and I hope to revisit the concept as Move38 advances the Blinks to production.

I contributed to both the system design and code for Skiplight.