Milpa

“Milpa’s theme of Mesoamerican agriculture is as refreshingly original as it is totally bizarre” - Nick Martens, The Bygone Bureau

 

Milpa is an action puzzler for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

For thousands of years Mesoamerican civilizations planted Milpas — sustainable agricultural fields of maize, beans, squash, avocados and tomatoes.

Match three crops in a row to harvest them. Plan ahead to make big combos. Move quickly before the Skull eats the crops, and collect enough crops to meet the needs of your people. Or, play Night Practice mode for a quick one-level game you can play at your own pace, without the Skull.

Game design

Milpa combines match-three gameplay with an arrangement concept from the text-based game Reverse published in the 1978 book BASIC Computer Games. Put together, it creates a one-dimensional match-three game.

iPhone wallpapers

About the Author

Hi, I'm David Brackeen, amd I love puzzle games. I created Milpa as a Java web game in 2007, and re-released it for iPhone and iPad in 2011.

You can say hello to me on Twitter: @brackeen

Further reading on Native Americans

Continuing with the Mesoamerican theme, Milpa's game over screen makes random references to several indigenous cultures from the western hemisphere, including groups that still exist day. For example, on one game over screen, the game references the Shoshone, a group mostly located in what is now the western U.S. and was known for digging up roots and tubers for food. (I read about them in one of my favorite books, Man's Rise to Civilization.)

If you're interested in this sort of thing, here are my favorite books about Native Americans and other indigenous peoples around the world. (Yes, the links shamelessly include my Amazon affiliate tag.)