Color Lines▶Play

Tap a ball to select it (it pulses). Tap it again to cancel, or tap another ball to switch. Then tap an empty cell: the ball moves there if a route of empty cells connects the two, stepping up, down, left or right — never diagonally and never over other balls. If there is no route, the message “No path to that cell” appears and the ball stays selected, so you can simply choose another target.

After every move the whole board is checked. Five or more balls of one color in a row — horizontally, vertically or along either diagonal — disappear together, and a move that clears a line skips that turn's three new balls. A move that clears nothing brings the three previewed balls onto random empty cells, and if they happen to complete a line, it clears and scores as well.

Scoring: clearing n balls at once is worth n + 2 × (n − 5) points, so five balls score 5, six score 8 and seven score 11 — every ball past the fifth is worth 3. When one move completes two lines, all their balls are counted together: two lines of five that cross at the ball you moved remove nine balls and score 17.

The game ends only when all 81 cells are full. Once fewer than three cells are free, only as many new balls as fit are placed, and if one of them completes a line the board opens up again and play goes on. Pressing New during a game that already has points ends it and shows your final score, so you can still save it to the Hall of Fame; tap New on that screen to start over.

Goal: the highest score before the board fills up. Your best score is kept on this device.

Tips & strategy

Three new balls spawn every turn, so the board fills relentlessly unless you keep clearing — and the key relief is that completing a line of five also cancels that turn's spawn. Aim to clear something often, even a modest line, just to hold the rising tide back; a turn that clears nothing is a turn you lose three squares of space.

Keep your open paths in mind, because a ball can only travel where empty cells connect — boxing yourself into a fragmented board leaves balls stranded with nowhere to move. Build your lines along the edges and especially the diagonals, which players forget, and try to leave gaps that a single move can fill into five. When the board tightens, prioritise the move that both threatens a clear and keeps the most travel routes open, rather than grabbing a clear that splits your remaining space in two.

It helps to know the arithmetic of the board. You begin with 76 empty cells, so a game in which you never cleared anything would last exactly 26 moves. Every move that clears nothing adds three balls, while a five-ball clear removes five and adds none, so you would need to complete a line on roughly three moves out of every eight just to keep the ball count level. Few players manage that pace for long, which is why the extra balls in a longer line matter for space as much as for points.

Every ball beyond the fifth scores 3 instead of 1 and also frees one more cell. A row built as three balls, a gap, then two more — finished by moving the right color into the hole — clears six balls for 8 points, where a plain line clears five for 5. The risk is the hole itself: each new ball lands on an empty cell chosen at random, so with 30 free cells a gap you are saving has about a 10% chance of being filled on any turn that brings new balls, and with 15 free cells about 20%. Keep such gaps while the board is roomy, and finish lines at once when it gets crowded.