Puzzle_fighter_lesson2

Outline:
I. Introduction
II. Chaining attacks
III. How to use the crash gem and diamond most effectively
IV. How to build on the rightmost side
V. Conclusion

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I. Introduction
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The goals of lesson 2 are:

* Become familiar with chaining attacks
* Become familiar with the best way to use a diamond
* Building "junk" colors

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II. Chaining attacks
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Blowing up 2 or more blocks in a row does more damage than blowing them up at the same time or separately.  Consider the following situation (lower case = crash gem):
 

b r B B  B B  R R  R R

 
I could blow them both up like this:
 

b  B B  B B  R R  R R r

 
This attack does 1 chain of damage because both blocks were blown up at the same time.  However, there are 2 ways to blow this up in a 2 chain combo, which would do more damage:
 

r      b  B B  B B  R R  R R

r  R R  R R

 
 
 

B B  B B  R R b  R R r

B B  B B b

In conclusion, when you can blow up multiple blocks, try to blow them up in a 2 chain or more whenever possible.

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III. How to use the diamond most effectively
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A diamond blows up all of a single color, but only does half damage.  Thus, it is not advisable to blow up your best block.  You should blow up the color:

1) you don't need OR
2) that is blocking the "drop" column

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IV. How to build junk on the rightmost side
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A major flaw of the strategies I mentioned thus far (Strategy #1 & Strategy #2) is that if the color you want to build doesn't fall down often, you won't have much damage to dish out.  This section will deal with how to build with colors you weren't looking for.

Supposed you need red, but keep getting other colors.  Here is how I deal with it:
 

B G -->

--> B G

--> B B  R G

--> G B B B R G

R G G B B B R G

And so on.  Note that I am building blue, and whatever is not blue, I stack it on the extreme right.  I do NOT stack in the "drop" column.  The goal is to build as many squares as possible.

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V. Conclusion
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In lesson 1, you learned:

* what colors to build
* How to build one color as big as possible

In lesson 2, you should have learned:

* The importance of chaining attacks
* How to use the diamond most effectively
* And what to do when you don't get the color you were looking for

In Lesson 3, I will discuss my alternative main strategy "Strategy #3" and one way I like to use crash gems.

kerrichan