Linked Pairs
Link two alike tiles with a path of up to two turns, and clear the board.
A flat tile-matching puzzle with 36 carved symbols: fruit, flowers, forest finds, shells, birds and small creatures. Tap two alike tiles and they go if a path of at most three straight lines joins them through empty cells or around the edge of the board. Quick pairs build a combo. Three levels, from 24 tiles of 6 kinds up to 54 tiles of 27 kinds that slide after every pair, and a new board every day, the same for everyone. Every board is dealt so that it can be cleared.
- Category
- Puzzle & Brain
- Modes
- Easy · Medium · Hard · Daily
- Controls
- Mouse · Touch
Loading…
How to play
Tap a tile, then another tile of the same kind. The two go if a path of at most three straight lines, so no more than two turns, joins them through empty cells or along the empty border around the board. Pairs taken within 3 seconds of each other build a combo worth up to five times the points. On hard, after every pair the tiles slide toward the glowing edge to close the gaps. When no pair can go, Shuffle deals the tiles left again: free on easy, 10 seconds on medium, 30 seconds on hard. Hint shows a pair that can go, at a cost of 10 seconds. Your score is the points from your pairs plus 10 points for every second left of the level's time budget. Higher is better.
What is Linked Pairs?
Linked Pairs belongs to the family of flat tile games that grew out of Mahjong Solitaire in Japan at the end of the 1980s and later spread across Asia as a quick pair-linking game for computers and phones. The tiles do not lie in layers: they all lie side by side on one grid, and what decides whether two alike tiles can go is the path between them. A path may run through empty cells and around the empty border of the board, but it may only change direction twice.
Every tile carries one of 36 carved symbols made for this game: cherries, lemons, grapes, pears, oranges and watermelon, tulips, sunflowers, daisies, cornflowers, lavender and clover, maple and ginkgo leaves, acorns, toadstools, a cactus and a snail, shells, a starfish, a seahorse, a crab and a fish, an owl, a penguin, a flamingo, a toucan, a duckling and a bluebird, a butterfly, a ladybug, a bee, a dragonfly, the moon and a snowflake.
How to play
Clear every tile from the board.
- Pick a pair. Tap a tile, then another tile of the same kind. Tap an unlike tile and the selection moves to it.
- Link them. The pair goes if a path of at most three straight lines, so with no more than two turns, joins the two tiles through empty cells or along the empty border around the board. The path glows for a moment as the pair goes.
- Combo. A pair taken within 3 seconds of the one before builds a combo. The second pair in a row scores twice the points, the third three times, up to five times.
- Hard level. After every pair the tiles slide toward the glowing edge of the board and close the gaps, so the board changes shape as you play.
- Stuck? When no pair can go, Shuffle deals the tiles left over the places they hold. It is free on easy, adds 10 seconds on medium and 30 seconds on hard.
- Hint shows a pair that can go. It adds 10 seconds and breaks your combo. You get five on easy, three on medium and two on hard.
- Score. Each pair is worth 10 points times its combo. When the board is clear, you get 10 more points for every second left of the level's time budget: 90 seconds on easy, 4 minutes on medium and 7 minutes on hard, with hints and paid shuffles counted on the clock. Higher is better.
The levels are easy (24 tiles of 6 kinds on a 4 by 6 grid), medium (42 tiles of 14 kinds on 6 by 7) and hard (54 tiles of 27 kinds on 6 by 9, a single pair of each kind, with sliding tiles). Every board is dealt so that it can be cleared.
Strategy tips
- Start at the edges. On a full board only neighbours and tiles on the same outer edge can link. Clearing the edges opens lanes into the middle.
- Look along lines. Before you hunt across the whole board, check the row and the column of a tile: most links are a straight line or a single turn.
- Keep a rhythm. The combo rewards pairs that come one after another. Spot the next pair while the last one is still glowing.
- Mind the slide on hard. Taking a pair near the glowing edge moves every tile behind it. Take the pairs far from the edge first when you want the rest to stay where you saw them.
- Save hints for the end. A hint costs 10 seconds and the combo. Near the end of a board few pairs are left, which is when one is hardest to find.
FAQ
Is Linked Pairs free to play?
Yes. Like every game on Play, it runs free in your browser, with no download and no account needed.
Can every board be cleared?
Yes. Every board is dealt from a winning order: the deal takes pairs off a blank board one by one, each linked when its turn comes, and only then gives each pair its symbol. Taking pairs in another order can still leave you stuck, and that is when the shuffle is offered.
What does the shuffle do?
It deals the symbols still on the board again over the same places, again from a winning order, so after a shuffle the board can always be cleared. Shuffle is only available when no pair can go.
What is the daily board?
Every day everyone gets the same medium board, with the same symbols in the same places, so scores compare directly on the daily leaderboard.
Why is the board sometimes turned?
To keep the tiles big. When the room is much wider than tall, on a phone held sideways for one, the board is drawn a quarter turn round. That changes nothing in the game, since a path keeps its turns. On hard the tiles then slide toward the right-hand edge, which glows.
