A modern WinUI 3 (C#) reimagining of the classic Windows 3.1 Same Game by Ikuo Hirohata (originally implemented in Java in the SameGame repository). Click groups of matching tiles, clear the board, and chase a high score - with undo/redo, multiple visual skins, and plenty of customization options.

How to Play

SameGame is played on a grid of colored blocks.

1. Click a group of two or more adjoining blocks of the same color to highlight them. Notice the amount of points the selection is worth (bottom left corner of the screen).
2. Click again on the highlighted group to remove it and score the points displayed.
3. Click elsewhere to clear the highlight without removing blocks.
4. After removal, blocks fall down and empty columns slide left.
5. The game ends when no more groups of two or more can be removed.
6. Your goal is to remove as many blocks as possible - ideally all of them.

Scoring

You score more points for removing larger groups at a time. The formula for scoring points for removing n blocks in one move:

Points(n) = n² − 3n + 4

Blocks removed	Points
2	2
3	4
4	8
5	14
6	22

Look for big clusters when you can!

Features

• Classic "Same Game" rules - adjacent blocks score points, gravity, and column collapse
• Undo / Redo - experiment with different moves without starting over
• High scores - top 10 scores saved with board size, color count, and date
• Board sizes - Small (10×10), Normal (20×10), Large (20×20), or Custom (Any size from 5×5 to 50×50)
• Three Difficulty levels - Easy (clustered colors), Medium (random), Hard (scattered colors)
• Optional countdown timer - configurable time limit (default 180 seconds)
• Multiple tile skins - Modern, Classic, Marbles, Blockcraft, Bricks, Shapes, and Gems
• Themes & backgrounds - Light/Dark UI themes; black or green background
• Custom colors - pick your own palette (3–6 colors) in Advanced Options
• Animations - animated tile movement (click the board to skip); can be toggled on/off
• Sound effects - subtle audio cues for each action, enhancing the gameplay experience; can be toggled on/off.
• Optional background music - soothing background music (can be toggled on/off)
• Internationalization - language support (English included - feel free to contribute a translated language file!)

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
F2	New Game
F1	Help
Ctrl+Z	Undo
Ctrl+Y	Redo

Developer Requirements

You do not strictly need Visual Studio, but you do need the Windows desktop development toolchain.

Required

1. Windows 10 version 1809 (build 17763) or later (Windows 11 recommended)
2. .NET 9 SDK (9.0.300 or newer) - required to build; the app targets .NET 8
3. Windows App SDK - restored automatically via NuGet when you build (self-contained in the output folder)
4. Windows App Runtime 2.x (optional) - only needed if you disable self-contained deployment; install with winget install Microsoft.WindowsAppRuntime.2.0

Recommended (easiest workflow)

• Visual Studio 2022 or newer (Community edition is free) with the WinUI Application Development workload.

Optional

• Visual Studio Code or other code editor - you can edit and build from the terminal with dotnet build / dotnet run

First-time setup (command line instructions)

# Install .NET 9 SDK for building (app targets .NET 8)
winget install Microsoft.DotNet.SDK.9

# Install WinUI project templates (optional; project is already scaffolded)
dotnet new install Microsoft.WindowsAppSDK.WinUI.CSharp.Templates

Build

dotnet build

Run

dotnet run

The default launch profile runs unpackaged with a self-contained Windows App SDK runtime. To run as an MSIX package (Visual Studio F5 uses this path when packaging is enabled):

dotnet run --launch-profile "SameGame (Package)"

Note: the Package profile may fail from the CLI if multiple .exe files are present in the build output; use Visual Studio F5 for packaged debugging, or stick with the default unpackaged profile.

Or open SameGame-WinUI3.sln in Visual Studio and press F5.

Debugging

dotnet run launches a GUI app with no console, so unhandled exceptions often close the window without printing anything. Options:

• Visual Studio / Cursor + C# Dev Kit - press F5 to run under the debugger; breakpoints and the Exception settings window show crashes immediately.
• Crash log - unhandled UI exceptions are written to %LocalAppData%\SameGame\crash.log.
• Attach debugger - start with dotnet run, then Debug → Attach to Process and select SameGame.exe.

Project Layout

Path	Purpose
Model/	Game logic (board, session, scoring, generation)
UI/	Tile rendering
Controls/	Game board control
Dialogs/	Game over, about, advanced options
Views/	Objectives, high scores, help windows
Persistence/	Settings and high scores (JSON in %LocalAppData%)
I18n/	Localized strings

Differences from the Java Version

• Settings and high scores use JSON files instead of Java Preferences
• 3D OpenGL gem rendering is replaced with Win2D 2D gem drawing
• Packaged as a WinUI 3 / Windows App SDK desktop app

Audio files

Sound effects (remove*.mp3, game-end.mp3) are committed to the repo. Background music (background*.mp3) is listed in .gitignore - copy your tracks into Assets/sounds/ when building to include your preferred background audio tracks.