Jewel Match Puzzle

Jewel Match Puzzle makes no attempt to reinvent match-3, and says so: the developer describes it as classic gameplay. You swap jewels to line up three or more of a colour, and the matched jewels clear. Bigger moves set off combos, and treasures are collected along the way.

The stages are spread across settings that the developer names as deserts and glaciers, with more beyond those. New stages become available as you progress. The level count is given in two ways in the same description, once as hundreds of levels and once as thousands of puzzles, so take either number loosely. Elsewhere it mentions jewel cubes and tapping matching colours, but the swap is the core move. It plays in a landscape frame with a mouse, and the developer pitches it as a puzzle break that fits a minute or an hour.

Click a jewel and swap it with a neighbouring one so that three or more of the same colour line up in a row or column. The matched jewels disappear. Keep making matches to complete the stage, setting off combos where you can and picking up treasures as they appear. Clearing a stage makes the next one available.

Combos are the one extra mechanic the developer mentions, so look for swaps that create more than one line, or a line that drops new jewels into another match. Scan the bottom of the board as well as the top; a match low down moves more jewels above it.

A traditional swap-based match-3 with jewels. Landscape frame (800 by 600). Mouse controls. Stages are set in deserts, glaciers and other places. The developer gives the level count as both hundreds and thousands.

Gem Legends also rewards lines of four or five with special power gems, and Dwarf Treasures has you collect treasure and smash ice blocks in dwarven mines while matching crystals.