Case study
Dance Match
A competitive match-3 where every move on the board becomes a move on the dance floor.
Make a match and the characters dance it out, in sync. Players go head-to-head for bragging rights and real cash prizes. We created the characters, the art and the animation, and built the game in Unity.
- Engine
- Unity
- Genre
- Competitive match-3
- Platform
- Skillz, cash tournaments
- Our role
- Art, animation & development
The board sets the beat.
Most match-3 games treat characters as decoration. In Dance Match they react to you. Every match you make triggers a dance move, so your board play turns into a performance.
The better you play, the bigger the routine. That gives players a reason to chase combos beyond the score, and makes a head-to-head match fun to watch.
On the board
Three stars in a row
On the dance floor
The frog hits his move
Characters
Meet the dancers
Two big personalities, designed so you can read their attitude from across the room, even at phone size.
From sketch to screen
Both dancers were designed from scratch by our artists. We start with expression studies to find the personality, lock the pose in a clean line sketch, then paint the final character for the game.
The Hippo
01Expression studies
02Pose sketch- 03Final render
The Frog
01Expression studies
02Pose sketch- 03Final render
Artwork
Six tiles, six shapes
Every colour has its own shape, so players can spot a match in a split second, even under pressure in a cash match and even if they are colour-blind.
Heart
Circle
Star
Triangle
Hexagon
Square
Specials and boosters
Striped candies
Created by bigger matches. Each one takes the colour of the match that made it.
Bombs
Like the striped candies, each bomb takes the colour of the match that created it.
Hammer
Magnet
Shuffle
Development
Built in Unity
A match-3 game, a dance game and a competitive game, all in one. Here is what we built to make them work together.
Match-3 engine
Swaps, matches, cascades and special pieces, all handled by a board system built from scratch in Unity.
Board-to-dance sync
Every match sends an event to the characters, so their dance moves fire in time with what happens on the board.
Combo choreography
Small matches get small steps. Big combos and special pieces unlock bigger, flashier routines.
Sound design
Layered, vibrant sound effects react to every swap, match and combo, so the game feels as good as it looks.
Head-to-head play
Players compete on identical boards, so the highest score comes down to speed, strategy and skill.
Real cash prizes
Matches are played for bragging rights and for real money, which means the rules have to be clear and fair.
From first sketch to first dance
- 01
Characters first
We designed the dancers before the board, so the whole game could be built around their personalities.
- 02
Art and animation
Characters, candy-style tiles, specials, boosters and the disco stage were made to feel like one bright world.
- 03
Unity build
We built the match-3 engine, the dance sync and the competitive layer in Unity and tested on real devices.
- 04
Sound and polish
Sound effects, particles and animation timing were tuned until every match felt like a beat drop.
Got a game idea with personality?
We design the characters, make the art and build it in Unity. Let's talk about yours.