The game of Cross Match is played on rectangular game board, using a set of tiles. There are two board sizes - 11x11 and 15x15, for the standard and large versions, respectively. The large game is more challenging, but is best played on a tablet.
Each game tile has 3 attributes: shape, color, and number. Each attribute has 4 possible values in the standard and 5 in the large version: the shapes are square, diamond, circle, triangle, and star; the colors are red, blue, green, yellow, and purple; and the numbers are 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The standard game only uses the first four of each of these.
The idea of the game is to make words from the tiles, under the condition that all tiles in a word must have 2 common attributes. For example, the tiles (red, square, 3), (red, triangle, 3) and (red, diamond, 3) could form a word, since they have the attributes red and 3 in common. The "deck" contains exactly one tile for each possible combination.
Each player is dealt a hand of 6 tiles (standard) or 10 tiles (large), which the other player cannot see. The players then take turns trying to place a single piece on the board, with the human taking the first move. The rules for playing pieces and scoring are as follows:
First, each new piece must be adjacent to at least one piece already on the board (including the wildcard - see below).
Second, if a piece is to become part of a word, then it must have the same 2 attributes in common with all the other pieces in that word.
The board has a "wildcard" piece at its center. This piece matches all attributes of any tile combined with it, so that words can be made right from the start. The setup allows the game board and game play to develop quickly and in any direction. The board also contains "special" squares, which give bonus points to players who are able to play tiles on those squares. Each attribute value is shown on exactly one such square.
Basic scoring is straightforward. When a piece is placed, the person placing the piece is awarded the square of the number of letters in each word to which the piece contributes. So, for instance, if a player plays a tile to form a 3-letter word, then that player will earn 3x3 = 9 points, plus any applicable bonus. In the standard game, the longest possible word is 4 tiles (16 points), while in the large game the longest possible word is 5 tiles (25 points). The squaring rule for word scores introduces interesting strategic decisions into the game.
If a player is unable to play during their turn, they can "recycle" a selected piece by touching the recycle button. If a player recycles in a turn, that’s the only thing that player is allowed to do. Recycling is no longer allowed once the deck is empty. Once that happens, touching the recycle button removes the tile from the game.
The winner is the player who has the most points at the end.
Some game features:
Zoom - You can zoom in to the game board. This is nice when you are playing the large game on a phone. It's also nice if you have trouble touching small buttons on your phone.
Game rules and help file - accessible through the menu.
In-game move help - There are two types of this. There's the "long touch" help, where you can long touch a square and be told which pieces will play there. This is free! There's also the "?" button, which will tell you which of your pieces will score the most points. Using this will cause your next play to score 1/2 its value. So use it prudently!
"It" levels - You can adjust the computer's ability between 3 levels. Which is best and worst is pretty clear from the menu names!
High scores - The game remembers your top ten scores on both the standard and the large games.
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