Cookie Crush 4

Two thousand boards of biscuits, and a scoring model that says plainly what it values: chains. Every level keeps its own high score, and the points come from clears that knock other clears loose rather than from tidy work.

Which puts most players’ instincts backwards. An easy match waits patiently for the next turn; the configuration that would have made it a chain rarely survives a clear taken beside it. The difference shows up as a number at the end of every level, which is an unusually direct way to be told you were impatient.

Cakes, doughnuts and coin chests fill the boards out, and boosters land often enough that saving them makes little sense. Of the whole Cookie Crush line this is the one for a player who likes wringing a board dry.

1. Trade two neighbours to bring three or more together.
2. Hunt for the clear that will drop pieces onto a second waiting match.
3. Let a promising cluster sit for a turn instead of breaking it apart.
4. Spend boosters to lengthen a chain rather than to end a board quickly.

Ask what a move sets up, not what it takes off the board. Where scoring runs on chains, the trigger clear is worth least of the three — and choosing between two equal-looking swaps on that basis is the whole game.