I have been playing Jewels in my phone and I am wondering about which one is the best strategy to follow to achieve the best score posible in a normal game
I have the following hypothesis:
try to get rid of jewels from the bottom of the screen first: This could generate more chain reactions since more parts of the board are affected, but could destroy existing opportunities. it also puts more 'entropy' into the board so it may be more difficult to run out of moves
try to get rid of jewels from the top of the screen first: this would prevent the destruction of opportunities, so I can get groups in the top and then in the bottom, but the effects of the changes are not so great so there is less chance for chain reactions. also I might run out of moves faster.
these are the most obvious ones. but is there any way to tell which one is better. Also, I know we can come up with some complex algorithm to achieve better results. Let's keep it simple and imagine that I will only plan one move at a time.
45 Answers
Go for the power moves! e.g. row of pink jewels followed by another row of pink jewels creates a burst of sparks that take out multiple jewels, opening up further possibilities. Always look for the power moves no matter what part of the screen they're on. I'm at 11 million on a saved game and still powering on. My favorite is to get two green rows in sequence, then you get to eliminate a whole color set from the screen at once, which can create a surge of chain reactions = lots of points! Tip when matching the green colors, when you've done two in a row and your power jewel appears on screen, don't use it straight away. Go for the x2 move first to maximize points! Enjoy.
The key is to maximize the utilization of all matching opportunities by making as many matches as possible in the top row, then the second row, etc. I broke 500,000 that way and have had overall higher scores.
If you are playing the timed version of MHGames Jewels, then, IMHO, the best strategy is to concentrate on the bottom, and only use the top when you are desperate to avoid being timed out.
There are two benefits to playing the bottom: 1) Chain reactions produce additional points without any extra effort. The lower your moves, the more potential synergies 2) The quickest way to advance the next level is with a burst of points in a very short time. This is especially true at the beginning of a new level. There is a brief time interval at the beginning of each level in which a burst of points advances you to the next level right away. It appears that the longer you stay on a level, the larger the burst of points has to be to advance to the next level, until some later inflection point at which time the requisite burst will be smaller.
Definitely go from top to bottom. This way when you start running out of moves, you can clear gems near the bottom of the screen to hopefully give you some more moves, and you won't miss the chance to make any moves near the top of the screen.
I work right to left and favor verticle combinations (the deeper in the stack the better) before horizontal (top down). That strategy has me over 5 million and still going. Vertical combos seem to generate more combos. Go for combos of 4 or more whenever there is an opportunity. If you have a choice, take the move that blows up a special jewel.
Also try to make moves during a chain reacion for even higher points.
