This level seems to be made or lost in the first two moves.
Clear the column of two dots on the right side first. About a third of time, you will get a square as a result.
Getting a run of square matches will allow you to meet the quota of colored dots.
If you have to clear down to the fire, try to only open one channel at a time and use squares to fight the fire back.
This level is one where you *don’t* want to focus on clearing the blocks before focusing on squares. Make sure you start with a square or restart. Otherwise, you’ll eat a couple of moves getting your first square.
Don’t forget that the column in the middle is completely independent of the other two. You’ll have to make squares to clear any space in it.
I’ve had good luck with the following combo:
Top down seems obvious, but it leaves you with far fewer moves by the time you clear the last block, and you need all the open spaces you can get open for clearing lines with squares.
Also, if you have a pattern like the following
.. .r .rr. r.bb ..
you’ll find that clearing the ‘bb’ row will form a square because of the teleport.
There are probably other patterns to look out for that don’t occur on other boards, but the diagonal ‘Y’ straddling the columns was the first one to set off a light bulb for me.
Clearing dots horizontally or in groups of 3 near the bottom is a good way to get “shuffle”, which helps when you’re nowhere near making a square. Clear squares from the top when you have them and work from the bottom when the board looks hopeless.
This is a deceptively hard level.
You start out with 35 moves and 5 color dots for which you have to clear 41 each. That’s a little under 6 dots per move, average. (Update: with the 1.1.2 update, it’s a little better than the “next-to-impossible” it was before… you now get 38 moves.
Clear the blocks in the middle from top down as efficiently as possible. If you start on a level in which you won’t be able to do this, you might as well restart. Exit and re-enter the game if you don’t start with a square on one side that matches the color of other dots touching other parts of the blocks.
Even with all this, you’ll still need a solid run of squares, because you’ll need to clear about 7 dots per move to make it. Positioning moves that clear two dots will eat into your moves. I ended up with frequent occasions where even squares just cleared the four dots because of no other matching colors.
Don’t forget the teleporting from left to right.
Good luck. This level isn’t as frustrating as Level 110 from game-to-game (no fire, of course), but after a while, it will make you question your ability to think clearly.
In this level, you want as much opportunity to clear as many dots as possible for every move. Two help with this, you need to clear the blocks in the section on the right.
I work from the top right and clear that pair, then the pair immediately to the left, and then the four dots down the left side of the section on the right.
From there, it’s just a matter of making as many squares as possible.
This is the first space level with fire (and ice).
After a few times through with dot layouts that weren’t all that different, I came across one that started with a square next to the far right column of fire.
So, restart until you can get a square in the right next to the fire on the right. Even better if none of the matching colors are in the teleporting columns.
Clear the fire on the right, then quickly get the fire isolated in the left columns to fall into the larger area and clear that.
Once the fire is gone, create squares until you’re down to the last few ice blocks, then target those directly.
Restart the level until you can quickly make a square in the open area in the middle.
Focus on the the open area in the middle for making 2×2 squares instead of trying to lap the gaps with a square.
Any enclosed area counts counts as a square, so you can wrap around any gap and clear a square and get bombs from the dots inside.
Clear ice individually once you get down to 4-5 ice blocks remaining. Hopefully, you’ll have 15-20 moves left.
You have 20 ice blocks to break in 33 moves on this one.
Again, think of this set up as a pair of continuous columns.
The left pair of columns never changes patterns, with the top row and bottom row matching colors (I think always red, as well).
The rest of the board is random. Restart the level if your first 10 moves are going to be spent clearing blocks from the top down. You want to see at least a few sets of two and three dots in the middle and right column when you start.
I experimented with skipping creating the square in the left column, but it doesn’t seem to be a trap.
After a good start, just look for pairs of dots of the same color in the left and right side of the pairs of columns and ways to clear dots to line them up into a square. Once you get on a roll with squares, this board clears pretty quickly.
Be sure not to get tunnel vision with squares at the end. One of my last three ice blocks always seems to be unbroken, and at that point, clearing ice from top (and left) to bottom (and right) is in order.
This board seems somewhat random each time. I’d recommend restarting until you get at least one visible square on the board and another one that is a single move away from being set up.
Otherwise, you’re going to end up way behind by your first square, because you have to clear a little less than a block of ice per move.
Aside from the initial setup, try to imagine the three blocks overhead as sitting on top of the lower section.
Watch out for getting down to 3 broken ice blocks. You may be better off clearing them individually at that point.
The margin for error is surprisingly small with this one, but at least there isn’t any fire involved.
Think of the three sets of columns as one long pair of columns, with the left pair on top and the right pair on the bottom.
Make squares from there.
