Wow thanks for the info and the link, very useful. Yeah, maybe tweaking the brightness of the grey tiles would be best, as it wouldn't have much knock-on ...
Thanks for the explanation, Joe. Indeed, your insight is inline what I observed with the "hard" levels in the freeform mode. The key impediment is the lack of "recoverability". In the later levels, I found that even a few bad random tile allocations (no fault of the player) can quickly snowball to an irrecoverable position. One particular difficult scenario is when there are too many square tiles stacked adjacent to each other. I wonder if it is possible to tweak the tile allocations to lessen the frequency of such drops. The AI can re-evaluate the current state of the board and adjust in real time the chances of the type of new tiles to appear (an extension of the biased coin randomization / allocation).
A picture is worth a thousand words! Nicely done, AppUnwrapper! (I feel your pain!) Good screenshot to explain the lack of "recoverability" I described in my earlier post.
I might have been able to save that one (can't remember) by matching up the greens at the top and then resetting the board. But I get stuck in positions like that quite late into a game without any way to recover before a bomb goes off. I hope the endless mode makes more sense score-wise, bc I think this game can shine there.
Oh maybe. Not sure if I could have pulled that off in time. I've had a few of those where I lost around 65. I eventually completed that level, but I think only by doing some fast (and lucky) moves while the bomb was in middle of exploding.
One minor complaint... and maybe it's posted elsewhere (but I'm too lazy to check). Whenever you click on the skull powerup (to extend the skull timer) the sound effect is REALLY loud compared to the rest of the audio. I'd love to see this fixed. Otherwise near perfect game.
I'm not sure how obvious it is, but if you tap a power-up before it is full up, it will tell you what is needed to fill it. In this case, the nuke powerup looks like it just needs one more circle to be matched. So I would have matched the red circle in the bottom right with the 23 above and the left pointing red arrow, and then reset the board. Or the red 9 and 23 can be matched in 3 moves, leaving 5 moves to clear the purple. It's hard to predict exactly how to do that at this point, but that would be my approach. The blue 12 looks like it would match easily enough on the left hand side, and it feels like the green 13 should too. It'd be tight though, sure! There is a few seconds when a skull is about to detonate where moves can still be made if you're quick. So if you plan which moves to make when it is on 1 move left, you can sometimes save the day that way.
Yeah, like I said, I don't remember if I actually completed that one. I might have. It was just an example of getting stuck with a lot of square tiles, forcing you to use up several moves to make a single match.
That is a GREAT tip. I've had a few games where I've been wishing I had just one more move. Of course, now I'm sure I'll start wishing I had two more moves, but what can you do?
How do you get a match involving the red 9 in 3 moves? I can't see it. I only see matching the red arrow (on second row), red 23, and red circle in 3 moves. Arghh... Interesting about sneaking in a few moves when the skull is about to detonate. I had never let my run get this close to have an opportunity to test this hidden behavior. Nice secret move!
Is this a bug or intentional? I ran out of moves on a skull, but at the same time the skull skill filled up and I used it to add 3 more moves to the zero. But the bomb went off anyway and and I lost.
Is there a bug in the levels where you have to protect the heart from the moving eye tile? I notice that when I make a move (beyond the opening move for the level) to match three or more tiles in which one of the tiles is the moving eye, that move is SOMETIMES NOT counted to lower the number of moves I still have to make. Why? As well, I notice that even if the moving eye tile is adjacent to the heart tile, it does not always go for an immediate kill on the next move. Instead, it may move away for one move and then return on the next move. Why? Is the movement of the moving eye tile "somewhat" random? Also, paying homage to the "I am in a pickle" scenario started by AppUnwrapper that so frequently happens in this game, here is a screenshot from a truly "narrow escape" from Level Z8 Hard Mode: I don't believe you can beat a level by any margin that is thinner this one! Update #1: Z9 is a tough! The near constant stream of bombs early on and the infrequent star tile drops mean that a few bad allocation of tiles will doom you, regardless of how well you play. Update #2: Finally passed Z9. Took so many, many tries that I almost cried (and then laughed).
Can someone please explain the narrative significance of Spoiler the cutscenes that played before some of the levels in the freeform mode with weird messages suggesting some nefarious AI or another character behind the tiles ? Does the story Spoiler continues on in the challenge mode, since I don't recall seeing any similar messages playing these stages ?
Has it been mentioned already that all of their games are "extended" Universal Apps?! Buy once, play them even on Apple TV 4. Swapperoo: Very recommended!
Just started playing today. I thought I was doing progressively worse in each level. I got an A for the first level, then a B for the second and a C for the third. It took till about H before I realised what was going on. Duh!
