Three of a Kind Tiles

What is Three of a Kind Tiles?

Three of a Kind Tiles belongs to the family of layered tile puzzles that grew out of Mahjong Solitaire. Mahjong Solitaire asks you to take free tiles off a stacked layout in pairs. The newer variant, which spread on phones in the early 2020s, changes two things: you collect sets of three instead of pairs, and every tile you take waits in a small tray until its set is complete. The tray holds only seven tiles, so every tap is a small decision.

Here every tile carries one of 21 hand-painted icons made for this game: strawberries, lemons, grapes, watermelon, oranges and blueberries, sunflowers, cherry blossoms, clover, maple leaves, acorns and toadstools, shells and a starfish, sweets and three gems. The layout is drawn from the seed, so no two boards are alike, and the Daily is the same board for everyone.

How to play

Clear every tile from the board.

• Free tiles. A tile is free when no other tile lies on it, even partly. Free tiles are bright; covered ones are dimmed, but you can still see what they are.
• Tap a free tile and it flies into the tray, next to the tiles of its kind already there.
• Three of a kind in the tray vanish together and free up their slots.
• A full tray loses. If all seven slots fill up without a set of three, the board is lost.
• Undo takes back the last tile you placed and puts it back on the board, up to three times a game. It cannot bring back a set that has already gone. Each undo adds 10 seconds.
• Shuffle deals the tiles still on the board again over the same places, up to twice a game. The tiles in the tray stay where they are. Each shuffle adds 20 seconds.
• Score. Your time to clear the board, plus the time added by Undo and Shuffle. Lower is better.

The levels are easy (45 tiles of 8 kinds in 3 layers), medium (75 tiles of 15 kinds in 4 layers) and hard (up to 105 tiles of 18 kinds in 6 layers). Every board is dealt so that a winning order exists.

Strategy tips

1. Look before you tap. Count the free tiles of each kind. A kind with three free tiles is a set you can take at once without any risk.
2. Finish before you start. A tray holding two strawberries and two lemons is fine; a tray holding one each of five kinds is one tap from trouble. Start a new kind only when you can see where its other two are.
3. Dig where it pays. When nothing makes a set, take the tile that frees the most tiles underneath it, especially on the tallest stacks.
4. Read the dimmed tiles. The tiles under the top layer are visible. If the third lemon sits under a tile you are about to take anyway, the lemon pair in your tray is safe.
5. Keep Undo for the last slot. With five or six tiles in the tray, one careless tap ends the board. An undo costs far less than starting again.

FAQ

Is Three of a Kind Tiles 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. Each board is dealt in whole sets of three from a winning order, and that order is played through the tray's own rules before the board is kept. Taking tiles in a different order can still fill the tray, which is the puzzle.

What happens when I shuffle?

The tiles still on the board are dealt again over the same places, so the shape of the stack stays the same but the icons change. The new deal is chosen so that, from the tiles already in your tray, the board can still be cleared whenever possible.

What is the daily board?

Every day everyone gets the same medium board: the same layout and the same icons in the same places, so times compare directly on the daily leaderboard.