About Gem Cascade
Forty match-three levels with a goal on every one: reach a score, clear a colour, or break the blockers. Swap two neighbours to line up three hearts, stars, gold bars, emeralds, potions or crystals, and watch the pieces above fall into the gap and match again. Longer lines build special pieces that clear a row, a block, or every piece of one colour. Moves are limited, coins earned along the way buy a hammer, a swap or a shuffle when a board goes wrong, and the level map keeps your stars.
How to play
- Swap two pieces next to each other to make a line of three or more of the same kind. Drag one onto its neighbour, or tap one and then the other.
- Matched pieces disappear, the pieces above fall down, and new lines can form on their own. That is a cascade, and it scores while you watch.
- Every level has its own goal shown at the top, and a limit: most levels give you a number of moves, and a few run on a clock instead. Finish the goal within the limit to pass.
- Matching more than three pieces, or in an L or T shape, leaves a special piece that clears a whole row, a block, or every piece of one colour.
Tips
- Work from the bottom. A swap low on the board drops everything above it, so it can start a cascade that a swap at the top cannot.
- Save the specials. Special pieces stay on the board until you use them. Two specials swapped together clear far more than either alone.
- Read the goal first. A score goal and a clear-the-colour goal want different moves. Chasing matches you do not need wastes your limited moves.
- Keep coins for stuck boards. Coins earned in levels buy a hammer (40), a swap (60) or a shuffle (30). A board with no moves left reshuffles itself for free, so save the shuffle for a board with nothing useful on it.
Read the full Gem Cascade guide (4 min read)
From the developer
Gem Cascade started on 9 September as a complete match-three puzzle: 40 authored levels, four special pieces and every combination of them, obstacles, a level map with stars, and boosters. It is built in a 3D engine and compiled to WebGL for this site.
I measured the difficulty rather than choosing it. A headless autoplayer runs two players over every level: a one-move greedy player standing in for an attentive human, and a random player as the control. The first found three levels nothing could beat, the second found twenty levels with no real decision in them. Move limits and star thresholds were then tuned from those runs. As shipped, the greedy player wins 87% of attempts on average and the random player 4.9%. The self-tests also caught two bugs a clean build did not: refilling wiped ice a level had placed, and growing vines could seal squares so they never refilled.
For this site I replaced the pieces with painted icons from Hyper Casual UI Pack by Smashy Tech and Fantasy RPG GUI by Artsystack, choosing six different silhouettes so the board still reads without colour, and rebuilt the phone layout so the board uses the full width of a tall screen. The sound effects and music are synthesised.
Son Hoang, who made Gem Cascade
Update history
- New painted pieces in six different shapes (heart, star, gold bar, emerald, potion, crystal), so the board reads even without colour.
- Phone layout that fills a tall screen, with no text under 13 pixels, and drag-to-swap for touch and mouse.
- Goal chips now reset between levels; a level with the same number of goals used to show the previous level's goal.
- A swap now leaves ice on its square, boosters charge only when they act, and timed levels run on the real clock.
- The result card now appears the moment a level ends, including when time runs out or the last cascade finishes.
- First version: 40 levels, four special pieces, five kinds of objective, four obstacles, a level map with stars, boosters and coins.
Questions
How many levels does Gem Cascade have?
Forty, on a map that keeps your stars and unlocks the next level as you pass each one. Your progress is stored in this browser.
Can I play Gem Cascade on a phone?
Yes. Drag or tap-then-tap both work, and on an upright phone the board fills the width with the goal above it and the boosters below.
What happens when I run out of moves?
The level ends and you can try it again. Nothing is lost except the coins you spent on boosters.
Is there anything to buy?
No. There is no money in the game at all. Coins come from playing, and they are only spent on the three boosters.
