Magic Stone Jewels

The jewels are carved from stone here, and the level, as ever in this family, cares about what is underneath them. Dirty cells cover the grid, a column or row of three or more identical stones scrubs the ones below, and the board is finished when the grid is clean.

Locked stones are the constraint that gives each level its shape. They cannot be swapped at all, which turns an open grid into a set of pockets with limited entrances — and a pocket approached from the wrong side stays dirty however well the rest of the board goes.

Shaped stones arm the specials, and each special spreads differently. Reading which one reaches into a corner is what separates a level cleared with time to spare from one that expires two cells short.

1. Find the dirty cells first — the stones are only the tool.
2. Make a column or row of three or more identical stone jewels above them.
3. Treat locked stones as walls and pick your entrance to each pocket accordingly.
4. Match shaped stones for the specials and fire them where ordinary matches cannot reach.

Begin in the pocket with the fewest entrances. Open ground stays reachable all level; a walled-off corner has a handful of chances, and skipping them early is how a level ends two cells short.