💠 MATCH THREE in Python

The same puzzle — but every match is found by Python

← Back to Fun Time
🐍 Starting Python…
Score
0
Moves
0
Best chain
0
Best score
0

⌨️ Controls

  • Click a shape, then click the one next to it — they swap
  • ↑ ↓ ← → move  •  SPACE pick and swap
  • N shuffle the board  •  R new game
  • P pause
  • 🎮 Xbox controller? Just plug it in or pair it — the stick and D-pad are the arrow keys, A is SPACE, Menu pauses and View starts again

🎯 How to play

  • Swap two shapes that are touching to make a line of three or more.
  • The line vanishes, everything above falls down, and new shapes drop in.
  • If the falling shapes make another line, that is a chain — and it is worth more.
  • A swap that makes no line is not allowed: the shapes simply swap back.

🏆 Scoring

  • Each shape cleared is worth 10 points.
  • The second link of a chain is worth double, the third triple, and so on.
  • So one big chain beats a lot of small matches.
  • Look for swaps that drop shapes onto other shapes of the same kind.

🧑‍💻 This whole game is Python

There is almost no JavaScript on this page. The browser downloaded Pyodide — a complete Python interpreter compiled to WebAssembly — and then ran the .py files in funtime/pylib/. Python does the rules, the maths and the drawing.

File What it does Good functions to try re-writing
pylib/match3_rules.py The rules: swapping, matching, falling, cascading swap_gems, find_matches, apply_gravity, try_swap
pylib/match3_draw.py Painting the shapes — Python calling the canvas draw_shape, draw_grid, render_game
pylib/match3_web.py The glue: clicks, the keyboard, the cursor do_action, on_board_click, start_game

🔍 Compare the two versions. Open lib/match3-rules.js and pylib/match3_rules.py side by side — same ideas, two languages.

🛠️ Build it yourself: Build Match Three in Python walks you through the functions one at a time.

⚠️ If the game never starts: the page has to read its .py files, which a browser will not do for a page opened straight off your disk. Use the live site, or run python3 -m http.server in the project folder.