What could Threes be?

The authors of one of the main games of February – Threes! – they told what the game could have been like if they had abandoned the minimalism of the released version. 

With the growing popularity of flat design, the fashion for which Microsoft launched (hitting, however, at the same time to the extreme), and which is patronized by Apple, there is nothing surprising in the desire of some developers to play in this field. That’s just it turns out only a few. Last year, Dots: A Game About Connecting from Betaworks One became the star of minimalism on mobile platforms. In this – the pedestal has passed Threes! from Sirvo, which has already become famous for another stylish puzzle – Puzzlejuice, whose release took place exactly a year before the launch of Threes!.

Threes! – this, following Flappy Bird, is another project that goes against the trends of the mobile games market (not counting, of course, visual design). The creation of Sirvo is a paid application with original mechanics. 

Gameplay Threes!There is a field of 4 by 4 cells.

Cards with numbers from 1 to 3 appear randomly on the field. When the cards are connected, their values are summed up. For example, combining cards 1 and 2 gives a card with a value of 3. However, not all cards can be combined with each other. You can combine only cards 1 and 2 (but not 1 and 1 or 2 and 2), as well as cards of equal value that are multiples of three (3 and 3 can be combined, but not 3 and 6). The game ends when the field is completely filled with cards. 

The game costs $1.99 and at the moment (Monday, February 24) is among the top five paid games in 21 countries, including the United States and in the box office hundreds of applications in 13 regions.

As the game developers Greg Wohlwend and Asher Vollmer told re/code, the project might not be so minimalistic. 

One of the variants of the gameThey spent six of the fourteen months of development experimenting with the design.

And initially there were no numbers. The guys drew symbols, sushi, even monsters. 

The problem is that because of the drawings, the game was too simple. It was necessary to make the gameplay difficult so that the players, having indulged with the connection of cards, would not leave. The developers saw the creation of additional barriers as the only solution. However, when the developers tried numbers as shirts for cards, the problem disappeared by itself. The numbers deprived the gameplay of evidence.

At the moment, Threes! Available only in the iOS version.