Jewels Match 3

Two things sit on this board at once. The jewels are what you move; the grime beneath them is what the level actually counts. Every column or row of three or more jewels of one type wipes the squares it stood on, and a level ends when not a single soiled square is left.

Some jewels refuse to budge. Those are locked, and they turn the grid into a set of separate pockets rather than one open field — a pocket you cannot reach from the side you are playing on will still be there when the clock stops, however well the rest of the board goes. Deciding where to start is therefore most of the level.

The shaped jewels are the other half of it. Matching them yields a symbol — a bomb, a crump, a flash, a time piece — and each spreads its effect in a different pattern across the grid. A player who knows which symbol reaches into a corner will finish levels that otherwise expire two squares short.

1. Find the soiled squares first; the jewels above them are only the tool.
2. Bring three or more jewels of one type into a column or row to wipe what lies underneath.
3. Treat locked jewels as walls and choose your starting corner accordingly.
4. Earn the shaped-jewel symbols and fire them into the pockets your ordinary matches cannot reach.

Start in the pocket with the fewest ways in. Open board can be cleaned at any point in the level, but a walled-off corner has a small number of chances, and every one you skip early is one fewer when the clock is short.