How to Play Battle Crush

Battle Crush is a duel. You and an opponent face each other across a board of weapon tiles, and the only way to attack is to match those tiles.

Empty the enemy health bar before yours runs out and the level is yours. Every tile you clear becomes a shot fired at your opponent.

Press on a tile and drag it onto a neighbour to swap the two. On a phone, swipe in the direction you want to swap.

If the swap does not line up a match, the two tiles slide back where they came from and nothing is spent — so you can look for combinations freely.

Line up three or more of the same weapon in a row or a column. Every tile in the match is cleared and turned into a shot.

The longer the line, the harder it hits. A match of four does more damage than a match of three, and a match of five hits harder still.

When tiles clear, the tiles above fall down to fill the gaps. If that makes another match, it fires straight away.

Each link in the chain multiplies both your damage and your score, so a deep cascade can decide a level in a single move. Watch the combo counter in the top bar — anything above x1 is a cascade in progress.

Match four in a line and the surviving tile becomes a striped tile. Swap it into any match and it clears a whole row or column.

Match five in a line, or make an L or a T shape, and you forge a rainbow bomb.

Swap a rainbow bomb with any ordinary tile and it goes off immediately, clearing every tile of that colour on the board.

Swap two rainbow bombs together and the entire board clears at once — the biggest hit in the game.

The Repair Kit heals you on the spot. The Striker clears a single tile you choose, and the Skull Bomb clears the whole three-by-three block around it.

Buy boosters with coins in the Coin Store, then tap one during a battle and tap the board to use it.

Coins arrive with every clear, every star you earn and every combo you chain. There is also a free coin drop in the store once a day.

Spend coins on boosters, or on coin packs if you would rather not wait.

Hero Mode is the campaign. Each map holds eight levels, and every map is tougher than the one before it — the enemies have more health and hit harder.

You start with three lives. Lose one whenever your health bar empties, and earn an extra life every three levels you clear. Run out and the run is over.

Finish a map and the game rolls you straight on to the next one.

Every level you clear is rated out of three stars, based on how few moves you needed. Beat the level in par or fewer moves for three stars, up to one and a half times par for two, and any longer for one.

Stars are worth coins, so a tidy win pays better than a scrappy one.

Free Play is the endless mode. There are no lives and no levels — just keep the board clear for as long as you can and push your score as high as it will go.

It is the fastest way to practise cascades before taking them into Hero Mode.

Your best run is posted to the leaderboard automatically when you are signed in — one row per player, holding their highest score.

You do not need an account to play any part of the game. An account is only needed to appear on the board.