One sentence: take a free tile, find its twin, don't fill the tray.
A turn
- You tap a free tile in the pile.
- The tile flies into the tray.
- If its twin is already in the tray, the pair bursts.
- If not, the tile waits there.
- When every slot is full, the level ends.
The tray has four slots in most levels. On deep skeletons — piles more than five layers high — it opens to six, because fewer tiles are free at once up there.
Which tile is free
A tile is free when its top is clear and one side is open. Both must hold:
- If a living tile on a higher layer sits on top of it, it is not free.
- If tiles flank it on both sides on its own layer, it is not free.
In practice: working inward from the edges is safer than working down from the top.
The one rule that keeps you out of trouble
Don't fill the last slot with a tile you cannot already match.
With three slots full, every tile you take is a decision: is its twin free on the board? If not, you have just closed the tray.
Helpers
| Helper | What it does |
|---|---|
| Shuffle | Redeals the tiles on the board. When no match is left, this is the way out. |
| Hint | Shows a matching pair. |
| Undo | Puts the last tile back on the board. |
Helpers come from finishing levels, from quests and from achievements, and can also be bought. Finishing a board without using any of them pays a bonus.
The chain multiplier
Quick matches in a row build a chain. The bigger the chain, the more each match is worth; the multiplier caps at three. Go four seconds without a match and it resets.
A good run tends to have two halves: opening the board slowly, then clearing the free tiles you have banked as fast as you can.
Lightning
Some tiles carry a lightning mark. Match a lightning pair and the whole layer bursts. The burst preserves the matching invariant — an even number of every symbol stays on the board, so the board stays solvable.
Stars and bands
Every level has a ceiling score, and what you earn lands in a band against it: Incredible, Splendid, Immense, Flawless, Epic, Legend.
Clearing the board is not enough to reach the ceiling; you have to clear it without breaking the chain and without helpers.
Quests
Three quests a day, three a week. They are derived from the date, so everyone has the same ones on the same day: "finish five levels", "build a chain of fifteen", "play on three different floors".
If you get stuck
There is nothing to lose in Balbal: if the tray fills the level ends, you redeal and start over. No clock is running, no life is spent.
More on the support page.