TILOMAT

GAME BOY · DMG · 32 KB

TILOMAT

The tile machine. Tiles come rattling down the belt – catch them with your cart, drop them into the bin and line up three of a kind before the stack runs over. A puzzle game for the original Game Boy, playable right here in your browser.

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TILOMAT · MK I
01

Play

Switch the machine on and press START. The game speaks German at first – press SELECT on the title screen for English.

  • ← →move the cart
  • X / KA – drop the top tile into the bin
  • Z / ↑B – toss the tile back onto the belt
  • ↓ heldrun the belt faster
  • EnterSTART – start, pause
  • ShiftSELECT – language on the title, quit in the pause

On a phone, use the buttons on the machine. Your high scores stay in this browser only.

02

How it works

A striped tile

Catch

Tiles come out of the machine and slide down five lanes. Park the cart under a lane before the tile reaches the end – a tile that falls off the belt breaks.

A stack of tiles

Stack

The cart holds four tiles. Drop the top one into the bin below, or toss it back up the belt to buy time.

Three tiles in a row

Line up

Three or more of a kind in a line – across, up or diagonal – vanish. Tiles above fall down and may line up again: each round of a cascade multiplies the points.

  • WHITE
  • FRAME
  • GRAY
  • CHECKS
  • STRIPES
  • DIAMOND
  • JOKER
03

Shifts & orders

The game runs in shifts. Every shift comes with a work order and ends as soon as it is filled. The orders grow a little every five shifts, the belt gets faster with every one, and new kinds of tile join in – from shift 8 also the joker, a star that fits every kind.

LINES

Make a number of lines, any kind, any direction.

TILES

Catch a number of tiles from the belt.

ONE KIND

Lines of the kind shown on the order.

POINTS

Score so many points within the shift.

LONG LINES

Lines of four or five tiles.

Points

WHATPOINTS
a caught tile10
a line of 3 / 4 / 5100 / 400 / 1000
across · diagonal× 2 · × 3
each round of a cascade× 2, × 3, …
every empty cell at the end of a shift50
the shift itself250 × shift

Breaks

Every tile that falls off the belt goes into the break meter. The fourth break ends the game – but every finished shift replaces one broken tile.

Tip

A tidy bin pays: the bonus for empty cells at the end of a shift is often worth more than a hasty line. And don't forget the cart can throw tiles back.

04

Screens

Animation: tiles sliding down the belt, the cart catching them
SHIFT 6, LIVE
Title screen
TITLE
The first shift explains the controls
FIRST SHIFT
A shift later in the game with jokers
SHIFT 10
Shift done, bonus
ORDER FILLED
A new kind of tile comes in
NEW TILE
Game over
END OF WORK
05

Get it

The ROM

tilomat.gb – 32 KB, MBC1 with 8 KB battery-backed RAM for the top ten. Runs on the original Game Boy from a flash cartridge, and in any good emulator (SameBoy, Gambatte, mGBA, BGB).

The source

C for GBDK-2020, graphics, texts and music generated by Python scripts, tests that play the game by themselves. All on GitHub.

Build it

With GBDK-2020 4.4 in tools/gbdk and Python with Pillow:

make