Match-3 games are fantastic games and are quite satisfying once you finally manage to complete that level you had been stuck one for a few days. One question that always arises in a discussion regarding these games is that do they actually require any strategic planning/tactics to solve or is it purely based on luck. In this article we’ll be discussing this a bit further.

To simply answer the above question, yes there is strategy involved in these games. While yes the starting layout of every level is quite random and that can’t be changed but everything after that is pretty much up to the player. Perhaps the most common example of the involvement of actual strategy in these games is the fact that you have to plan ahead and match the objects in such a way that you’re able to eventually match together four or maybe five in a single turn which will spawn special objects that you can then utilize to clear up the playing area quite a bit.

In almost every single match-3 game, combining five objects at the same time spawns a special one that upon combining with another regular object will remove all items of that color from the playing area. Strategy is involved here as well because you have to properly think everything through and match-3 it with an object that will has the most of its kind on the level which will in turn lead to you gaining a lot of points and becoming closer to accomplishing the given objective.

Moving further, the strategic depth of these games is also proven by the fact that you can combine different kinds of special objects for various different effects. The prime example of this comes from candy crush where if you combine a striped candy with a wrapped candy, the special effects of both these combine and because of that you’re able to clear up a major portion of the playing area simply by combining these two. Of course it’s quite hard to bring these two types of candies in a situation where you can combine them together so planning ahead is really crucial if you aim to do so.

Power-ups are perhaps one of the biggest factors in pretty much every single match-3 game. The tactical advantage that these power-ups give you is simply too big to pass over and if you can manage to utilize them properly then the level instantly becomes a lot easier for you. The first, most common power-up that exists in pretty much every match-3 game is the one which allows you to instantly remove a single object from the playing field. The advantages of it are quite obvious as you can use it to remove that one annoying object that’s stopping you from creating a combination of five.

The second power-up is the swap which allows you to exchange the places of two adjacent objects even though they might not be matching so you can use it to create scenarios where the next move will be guaranteed to give you a special object.

Overall, it’s pretty clear from all the things stated above that although it might not seem like at first glance, match-3 games have a significant amount of strategic depth to them and while they’re easy to get the hang of, they take quite a lot of effort to master because of all these things. Of course we recommend you to try them out because strategy aside they’re quite addictive and fun to play so they’re sure to please.