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MythMatch twists the match-3 formula into something legendary

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After Zeus was done deposing his father and took the throne as king of then gods, ending the Titanomachy, things should have gotten better for the mortals down on Gaia. Unfortunately — as with many thrones won through violence and war — nepotism and worse turns any hope of fair leadership into a joke. Mythmatch follows Artemis, who is ready to take on the role of a goddess but will has to fight against the system to become one.

Mythmatch‘s Apollo is a spoilt brat; athletic but unambitious and crude. It’s an easy fit for a god associated with everything from healing and prophecy through to poetry and flocks, who very much — on paper, in 2024 — appears as a kind of Golden Child lavished with any spare title left laying around. Especially when, there was at least 3000 gods of rivers, and 3000 Oceanid nymphs floating around largely unnamed.

Artemis in turn is a is a plucky not-quite god who has recently mastered combining objects into new ones, with the first level seeing her combine mud into beasts by using a combination of a kind of grapple-shot and throwing. That is, you fire an arrow and then it pulls the object you connect with toward you, when items form or land on the ground near two other instances they then merge up into something new.

The issue is that Zeus has basically set up a boys club, and despite him being summoned to witness your powers, he only ascends Apollo, leaving you to scrape your way up to the big leagues.

Mythmatched Gods are kinda basically tech-bros if not bank-bros of the 80s

You’ll proceed by pushing further and further through a very tricky merging challenge that takes what you’ve learned through Mythmatch so far and demands that you perform quickly and to a timer. However, when you’re not doing that you’re taking part in what, for me, is the most important and satisfying element of play… You’ll be helping develop Ithaca and develop friendships and trust with the residents of the village. It’s that trust or worship that allows you to unlock new abilities (like freezing time) in the tricky merging challenge required to get promoted.

Down in the mortal realm is where the community-building element of it comes in. Everybody in Ithaca has some sort of issue, things blocking their work or obstacles that they can’t overcome. When you first arrive you need to restore a chariot so that you can return to Olympus to attempt to push harder for promotion — Olympus’ boys club is very much stylised like an 80’s Big City job, mailroom and all. For that you’ll need to gather and merge moon fragments, however some of those are in a shattered greenhouse you’ll need to repair. Repair that and, suddenly, people can get food. It goes from there.

It’s not all about simply matching sequences though. Ithaca is open for you to explore and the citizens that you help each have their own stories, they’ll also create or relocate items that are created, giving at least an illusion of a routine.

I played through the demo of Mythmatch while I was at MCM x EGX earlier in the year and completed the whole damn thing without taking a break. I can’t wait to play more of it as it moves closer to development.

Mythmatch is in development for Windows PC & Mac.

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