Swaps

Medium Swaps boards

Medium boards are a row taller, with fifteen to eighteen gems, and about half the swaps you can make first strand a color for good: look at what each line will drop before you make it.

Practice gives you boards you haven't cleared yet, as many as you like, and keeps your best time without hints. Every board is made and checked by a computer, and its par is the fewest swaps that clear it.

How to play Swaps

1. Swap two gems side by side, or one above the other. A swap only counts if it lines up three or more gems of one color, across or down.
2. The line vanishes, and the gems above it fall into the gap. If they land in a line of three, that vanishes too.
3. Nothing new ever drops in: clear every gem off the board.

Drag a gem onto its neighbor to swap them, or tap one and then the other. Each color has its own shape, so you never have to tell colors apart. Every board can be cleared, but the order matters: a careless swap can strand gems that can never line up again. Undo has no limit, and Ctrl+Z takes a swap back. On a keyboard, move around with the arrow keys, press Enter to pick a gem up, and an arrow key to swap it that way. Every board has a par, the fewest swaps that clear it, worked out by a computer.

Solving tips

• Count the colors. Three or four gems of a color have to vanish in a single line, all together: make sure nothing you do keeps them apart.
• Mind what falls. A line low down drops everything above it, which can make a new line, or break one you were building. A line at the top moves nothing else.
• Let the gems fall into place. The best swaps set off a cascade: clear a line so the gems above land in a line of their own.
• Stuck? A hint shows a swap on a way to clear the board, or, once the board can't be cleared any more, how many swaps to take back.