This is my first game using the box2d physics engine and also my first attempt at using AS3. I have used AS2 for a few years now but until this project didnt need to step up to the newer version. The game started out as just an exercise so I could learn how box2d worked etc, but soon i found myself trying to make something more.

Special thanks to Todd who's tutorials proved invaluable to me (http://www.kerp.net/box2 d/index.php) if anyone is thinking about using the box2d engine i recommend watching those.

The original idea for the game was to have different shapes in a huge pile and you would need to fire shapes at them to try and match the colours. I found this was very difficult and also box2d was having todo alot of work because everytime a shape was touched they would all become "awake". To solve the performance issues i decided to use columns instead as this allows shapes in other columns to remain "asleep" while others are being hit. I also added some code into my game that drops the movie quality if the frame per second drop below 20 - this meant the game would still be smooth and playable on low end machines (or at least better than it was!).

The alpha versions of the game had the new waves spawning from above and being dropped into play, this was nice but had its issues. Firstly the idea of keeping things in columns was lost because as new jewels fell into play if you didnt have neatly stacked jewels you would just end up with a mess - and once it was a mess there was no way back. Also the other problem was that to spawn a new row the player had to be stopped from shooting incase a jewel was fired and hit the new row of falling jewels then bouncing into the endgame line. Stopping the player from shooting really slowed the experience down, the solution was simple, add the rows from below. I was able todo this by adding an invisible block that pushes all the jewels up... then the new row spawned underneath. This method means the player can keep shooting and also the jewels will keep in stacks even if you create a mess ontop!

My final stage of creation was the design, a friend told me that this type of puzzle game should be targetted at the female audience. I agreed so went with a light and colourful style.

Think thats about it, also thanks to the guys on irc (they know who they are) the feedback and ideas helped alot even though i ignored them :D

Now beat my highscore!