Hexa Candy Match 3

Hexa Candy Match 3 changes the basic move of the genre. Most match-3 games let you swap two neighbouring pieces. Here the candies are hexagons, and you rotate a whole cluster of them at once, turning the group so the colours fall into new positions. Get a line of the same colour and those candies clear.

The aim on each level is to empty the board before you run out of moves. Because one rotation shifts several candies together, a single move can set up a line in one place while breaking one somewhere else, which is the puzzle the developer is after when it calls the rotations more strategic than swaps. Move limits get tighter as you advance, and the arrangements of candy become more complicated. The board sits in a landscape frame and is played with a mouse click or a tap.

Pick a cluster of hexagonal candies with a click or a tap to rotate it. Turning the cluster moves its candies around one another into new places. Rotate clusters until candies of one colour form a line, which clears them. Keep going until the board is empty. Each level allows a set number of moves, and running out before the board is clear means the level is lost.

A rotation moves every candy in the cluster, not only the one you are looking at. Before turning, check where each of the other candies will end up, so you do not break a line you were building. With the move limits shrinking later on, spend early moves on rotations that clear more than one line.

A match-3 played by rotation rather than swapping, on a hexagonal grid. Landscape frame (800 by 600). Mouse click or tap. Every level has a move limit, and the developer says limits tighten and candy layouts grow more complex.

PushPlush also drops the usual swap, letting you slide whole rows and columns of creatures instead, and Fruit Goals Match gives each fruit-collecting mission a fixed number of moves.