Musing on Match-3 games

I'm not sure there really needs to be a "strategy guide" to any of the endless match-3 app games out there, but here are some tips specifically for Kitten Match.  

These games all tend to have the same power ups:
- a thing that will clear a row or column (in this case it's a "rocket"),
- a thing that will remove all icons within a block or two (bomb), a thing that will fly over to hit another icon (missile),
- and a thing that will remove all icons of the matching type (cat ball).  

Meanwhile, this game has standard types of boosters:
- one to remove any one icon (scoop),
- one swap any two (I forget what it's really called, we call it the swapper)
- and one to remove one full row AND column (claws).  

You match four in a row to get rockets, and the direction of that match determines the direction (row or column) of the rocket.  Four in a square gets a missile, five in a row gets a cat ball, and five in an "L" shape gets a bomb.

Of the obstacles, they fall into a few groups:
- ones that can be broken by breaking any neighboring piece, 
- ones that need to be part of a combo to break,
- and ones that can only be broken by direct hits from power-ups.

By "break" I mean subtract one from the state of an icon, since some icons take multiple shots to remove.  There are targets that are open on some turns then close for one or two turns, and others that can block power-ups or prevent pieces from being used at all.  There are obstacles that will slowly grow or harden, and others like the carpet that you have to spread across the whole board to complete the level.  One final detail: some pieces can be swapped with regular pieces and others cannot be moved at all -- this is an important distinction, since if you can swap a bomb one block closer to the middle of a cluster of pieces to set it off, you get better results.

Where the power-ups get interesting is the combinations you can make.  Rocket + bomb takes out three rows and three columns.  Two bombs is a super bomb that clears half the screen, and two cat balls clears the whole screen.  Two rockets merged will trigger THREE rockets.  And rocket or bomb plus missile has the missile carry the other power-up somewhere then release it.  Cat ball plus bomb, rocket or missile generates a large number of bombs, rockets or missiles across the whole layout (any space which has a regular piece on it is fair game) and triggers them all.  They're the most fun combo to watch.

These games will all offer power ups or boosters you can use before starting the level.  My first tip would be: don't use ANY boosters until you have tried the level once to see which boosters would be most effective.  You may find you needed no boosters at all.  The starting layout may be so cramped that the boosters get in each other's way or are just plain ineffective.  The cat ball combos are useless if there are only 10 or 20 actual spaces with pieces it can replace with power-ups.  The boosters offered at the start of a level this game are: free bomb and missile at the start, free cat ball at the start, and double missiles for the whole level.  The first two are not useful in cramped layouts, and the double missiles are the most effective as they stick around the longest.

Don't just tap the power-ups one at a time as they appear.  It is often worth a few extra moves to drop a power-up down next to a cat ball so you can trigger one of those combos, or to get two bombs together.  You may well break 40 pieces instead of 8.  The bomb plus rocket combo is the next most powerful one.

Clearly, these apps are designed to have "super hard" levels come up regularly which are so aggravating that you can't help but pay real money for some pack of boosters or coins.  So I recommend going carefully, not wasting those boosters, and working out the best combos.  I know it's hard to think when some slime or something is slowly growing, but it you remove those first you can focus on the fixed targets.  And some levels have pieces on screen that are not part of the actual objectives, so don't waste too much time clearing things that are not needed for a win.