About Gem Swap
Gem Swap is a match-three puzzle on an 8 x 8 board of six kinds of gems. You swap two neighbouring gems to line up three or more of a kind, which clears them and lets new gems fall in from the top. You have 25 moves to score as much as you can, and chain reactions are where the big points are.
How to play
- Swap two gems that are next to each other horizontally or vertically. The swap only happens if it creates a line of three or more matching gems; otherwise nothing changes and no move is used.
- All gems that are part of a horizontal or vertical line of three or more are cleared together, including longer lines and crossing lines.
- After a clear, gems above fall down and new random gems drop in from the top. If the new layout makes more lines, they clear automatically as a cascade.
- Each clear scores 10 points per gem times the combo step: the first clear of a move is x1, the first cascade x2, the next x3, and so on.
- If the board settles with no possible matching swap, it is replaced with a fresh board.
- You have 25 moves. The game ends when the last move and all its cascades have finished, and your score is recorded then.
Controls
- Mouse or touch: click or tap a gem to select it, then click a neighbouring gem to swap them.
- Clicking a gem that is not next to your selection selects that gem instead.
- There is no keyboard control for this game.
Tips and strategy
- Look for matches near the bottom of the board. Clearing low gems makes everything above fall, which gives the most chances for free cascades.
- Cascades multiply quickly. A three-gem clear on the third step of a chain is worth 90 points, three times as much as the same clear on your swap.
- Prefer swaps that make four or five in a row, or two lines at once. They clear more gems for the same move.
- Before using a move, scan the whole board. A swap that looks fine at the top may waste a better one at the bottom.
- With your last few moves, take the swap that clears the most gems right now, since there is little future to set up.
Background
Match-three games of this kind trace back to Shariki, a 1994 DOS game by Russian programmer Eugene Alemzhin. The genre became widely popular with Bejeweled, released by PopCap Games in 2001, and later with mobile games built on the same swap-and-match idea.
Questions
- Does an invalid swap cost a move?
- No. If a swap would not create a line of three, the gems stay where they are and your move count does not change.
- Are there special gems or power-ups?
- No. Matching four or five clears more gems and scores more, but it does not create special gems.
- Can the board run out of moves?
- Not permanently. If no valid swap is left after a move settles, the game deals a new board and you keep your score and remaining moves.