C Programming with Raylib – Match3 Game Tutorial

Learn to build a complete match-3 game from scratch using C programming and the Raylib graphics library in this hands-on tutorial. You'll create a polished ASCII-based puzzle game with smooth animations, visual effects, sound integration, and responsive gameplay mechanics. The course covers everything from setting up the game loop and tile matching logic to implementing score systems, particle effects, and audio feedback.

Course created by @ErikYuzwa.

⭐️ Contents ⭐️
⌨️ (0:00:00) Introduction
⌨️ (0:01:19) Basic project intro
⌨️ (0:02:28) New Project
⌨️ (0:02:38) Main Game Loop
⌨️ (0:07:54) Drawing Tile Board
⌨️ (0:11:00) Centering Tile Board
⌨️ (0:13:07) Adding Background Image
⌨️ (0:17:24) Displaying the Score
⌨️ (0:18:21) Loading a Custom TTF
⌨️ (0:21:52) Tracking Mouse Clicks
⌨️ (0:26:10) Finding Tile Matches
⌨️ (0:33:54) Remove Matches
⌨️ (0:37:00) Adding Tile Animation
⌨️ (0:41:50) Swapping Tiles
⌨️ (0:47:18) Adding a Tile State
⌨️ (0:55:20) Adding a Board Background
⌨️ (0:57:37) Adding Music and Sound
⌨️ (1:01:14) Adding Score Popups
⌨️ (1:09:19) Adding Score Burst
⌨️ (1:12:45) Wrapping Up

🎉 Thanks to our Champion and Sponsor supporters:
👾 Drake Milly
👾 Ulises Moralez
👾 Goddard Tan
👾 David MG
👾 Matthew Springman
👾 Claudio
👾 Oscar R.
👾 jedi-or-sith
👾 Nattira Maneerat
👾 Justin Hual

--

[ErikYuzwa]

Thank you SO much for this blessed opportunity to try and help the community! Hope y'all find it useful!

[evolutionarybiology]

Welcome back Free code camp to your usual track😊

[TT-piww]

This is really old school coding. I learned C more than 30 years ago 😂. I think you could explain the program logic more. Also the raylib functions. I don't think it is common knowledge.

[UltimateMotivation]

Lmfao we're gonna see a lot more match games after this vid

[xliquidflames]

36:04 You typed random.time but said "random tile" so I assume that random.time is a typo you fixed off screen because the game still worked when you ran it. I assume you edited out fixing the typo?

[kevinpaz]

n00b question, but I'm having trouble setting up a plain old C file in Visual Studio...Any tips or resources? It's forcing me to make them C++ (.cpp)

[krethickchakravarthy]

Hi Erik, I have a doubt:

void init_board(){
for(int y=0;y<BOARD_SIZE;y++){ // Rows first
for(int x=0;x<BOARD_SIZE;x++){ // Columns second
board[y][x] = random_tile();
}
}

Why not

void init_board(){
for(int x=0;x<BOARD_SIZE;x++){ // Rows first
for(int y=0;y<BOARD_SIZE;y++){ // Columns second
boardx][y] = random_tile();
}
}

Usually x (horizontal) is reprensented as rows and y (vertical )is represnted as col so x should be first and y should be second right?

[Warrior-bi]

Some of the tutorials on your channel feature Indian speakers, but I personally find it difficult to understand their accent. I would appreciate clearer pronunciation or subtitles please we need people from UK or USA