Normally people don't just spring a game release on you, without some sort of buildup or development information, but Gemcrate was meant to be a present to my dad, first and foremost. So I kept its development under wraps until I could reveal it to him.
My dad used to play a particular game endlessly, and those of you that instantly recognize what game Gemcrate is a modern adaption of, will know what he played. Well, after developing a version for him, I continued on, developing a version for public release, that included more polish he didn't require, such as in-game help screens, and supplemental information, such as eula's and screenshots, etc.
I must say, it did come out very well. It plays just like I expect a classic match-3 to play like, which is surprisingly more difficult to hone in on, than it sounds.
Gemcrate is, at its core, an attempt to recapture some of the fun and magic had when playing similar match-3 games in the golden era of Mac shareware. The result is a faithful adaption of those games, brought into the modern age of indie gamedev.
If you'd like to play the game, it's available for free (name your own price) on itch.io, although if you thoroughly enjoy playing it, please consider purchasing a copy on itch. A lot of time and love went into making Gemcrate, and I hope I can continue to pour that much attention into future projects.
For the curious, Gemcrate was developed using Godot 3.2, and assets were made using Aseprite and Audacity. With the library of open-source tools available nowadays, I always encourage everyone with an interest in gamedev, to go out and make a game that speaks to you.