Fruit Match 3

The goal in Fruit Match 3 is not the fruit — it is the grid underneath. Each level covers part of the board in dirty cells, and clearing them all before time expires is what finishes the level. Fruit is just the tool: line up three or more of a type in a column or a row and they disappear, taking the grime beneath them with them.

Two things complicate it. Some fruit is locked and cannot be swapped at all, so parts of the board have to be worked around rather than through. And matching fruit of a particular shape produces special symbols — a bomb, a crump, a flash, a time symbol — each of which clears in a different pattern. The time symbol is the one worth hunting when a level is tight, because it buys the seconds that everything else spends.

Learn which special does what and the later levels stop being a scramble. Ignore them and the timer wins.

1. Look at where the dirty cells are — those, not the fruit, are what the level is asking for.
2. Swap two neighbouring fruits to make a column or row of three or more of the same type.
3. Leave locked fruit alone; plan the clears around it rather than into it.
4. Match shaped fruit to earn the bomb, crump, flash and time symbols, and set them off over dirt rather than over clean board.

When the clock gets short, stop clearing dirt directly and go hunting for the time symbol. A few seconds bought early is worth more than two cells cleaned late, and the levels are built on the assumption that you will find it.