Paranatural: Spirit Stackers
Join the Activity Club as they hone their spectral abilities in this classic arcade-style competitive puzzler! Play with a friend, or challenge the Arcade Mode!
This game was made for Falling Block Jam 2025! It's a fan work of the web series Paranatural, by my dear friend Zachary Morrison! If you want to get to know these characters, read it for free here!
CONTROLS:
You can play with the keyboard or a gamepad! Outside of 2P mode, you can freely switch between them at any time.
Arrow keys / D-pad: Move piece left and right, drop piece down
Z/X keys / A/B buttons: Rotate pieces
Enter / Start Button: Pause / Confirm
RULES:
During the game, you drop pairs of blocks onto your playfield, which consist of Spirit Blocks and Spectral Energy pieces.
Spirit Blocks will absorb Spectral Energy pieces of the same color across any distance. When they do, all adjacent Spirit Blocks of the same color will get destroyed.
When you destroy Spirit Blocks, you attack your opponent by sending Junk Blocks over to their playfield. The more pieces you clear, the more junk you send. You also get bonuses for chain reactions, and for absorbing energy across long distances! Notifications on the side of your playfield show how your moves are scored.
You can clear Junk Blocks by clearing any other piece next to them. Junk Blocks may seem like a huge pain, but don't worry - they aren't solid to Spectral Energy, which will travel straight through them!
Every 25 pieces, you get a special White Spectral Energy piece, which can be absorbed by Spirit Blocks of any color. It's especially useful for recovering after getting hit by a tidal wave of Junk Blocks. Use it wisely!
Spectral Energy is always absorbed by the matching Spirit Block that's closest. If there are two or more compatible blocks the same distance away, the direction priority is: The block below, the block to the side (toward the center), and the block above.
The game ends when one player's playfield fills up, blocking the space where new pieces enter. Best two of three wins - see if you can beat all your fellow club members in the Arcade Mode!
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Comments
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oh HELL yeah. always love a new vs. puzzle game, especially from my favourite game dev :)
any thoughts on expanding this in the future?
Great game, I love puzzle fighters and when I saw this game change how the block clear system works I knew this was gonna be a fun ventre
some of the audio is being edited so later there maybe some audio gaps
Keep up the good work.Falling block jam is going to be a gamejam I am going to check out more of like I do with the bullethell and magical girl and touhou jams
Nice, it’s like Puzzle Fighter except the “flame” block can move across a distince, don’t think I’ve seen that before. Also the presentation graphics and music is top notch 👍
Two things I noticed though 1) When an Energy piece lands between 2 groups (like 1 single piece and a group of 4) it seems to randomly choose a group to destroy, sometimes the smallest. imho it should automatically pick the largest group. 2) the energy/flame pieces all have the same color, the makes it harder (or unplayable?) for people who are color blind.
Thank you for the kind words!
Regarding the feedback:
1) The direction priority isn't random, it's actually stated in the readme file and on the game's page. The priority is: bottom piece first, then the sides (toward the center first), then the top piece. I wanted to try having it prioritize larger groups but I didn't have time to mess with the mechanics as much as I'd like. I made this entire game by myself in one week
2) Accessibility concerns / colorblind-friendly options were another thing I wanted to put in but didn't have time to do. I had to make this entire game by myself in one week. Stuff like alternative palettes or a menu for rebinding controls would have taken time I didn't have. The fact that there's even volume control and a pause menu is already going above and beyond here!
so good!