How to play Columns
A stick of three jewels drops into a well six wide and thirteen deep. Steer it left or right, cycle the order of its three jewels, and set it down so that three or more of a colour line up across, down or diagonally. They vanish, everything above falls into the gap, and any new lines the fall makes vanish too, as a chain.
Classic runs until the well overflows. Flash starts with six rows of jewels already in the well and one of them, in the bottom row, ringed in red: clear that jewel as fast as you can.
Rules
- There are six colours, each with its own engraved sign: diamond, ring, triangle, cross, square and three bars. A line needs three or more of one colour in a straight row, horizontal, vertical or diagonal.
- Every jewel cleared scores 10 points times the level plus one, times the step of the chain: the first clear counts once, the clear the fall sets off counts twice, the next three times, and so on. Soft drop adds 1 point a row.
- The level goes up every 30 jewels. Sticks start at 0.8 seconds a row and fall about 15% faster with each level.
- In Classic, once you have cleared 30 jewels a Magic Jewel turns up now and then: a striped stick with a star. Wherever it lands, it takes every jewel of the colour directly beneath it off the board. Landed on the floor, it does nothing.
- The game ends when a stick lands with part of it still above the rim. Flash ends when the ringed jewel goes, and only cleared rounds count for its best time.
Controls
- ← →
- Move the stick
- ↑ / Space / X
- Cycle the jewels (bottom one to the top)
- Z
- Cycle the other way
- ↓
- Soft drop; on the ground, set the stick down at once
- P / Esc
- Pause
- Enter / Space
- Start or play again
- Touch
- On-screen buttons for move, cycle, drop and pause
Tips
- Keep the third column low. New sticks come in above it, so when it is nearly full they touch down almost at once, and a full third column ends the game even with room elsewhere.
- Look for diagonals. They are the lines most players miss, and they are often what turns one clear into a chain.
- Set up chains on purpose: leave two of a colour above a line that is about to clear, so the fall drops them onto a third.
- Save the Magic Jewel for the colour you have most of, ideally one buried low in the well.
Columns strategy
Chains multiply, levels add
A jewel scores 10 times the level plus one, times the step of its chain. Three jewels cleared on a plain landing at level 0 give 30 points; the same three as the second step of a chain give 60, and as the third step 90. The level climbs every 30 jewels, so the same chain is worth more later. A two-step chain is worth as much as waiting a whole level, which is why the strong scores come from chains rather than from staying alive slowly.
How a chain is built
After a clear, every jewel above the gap drops straight down its column. A chain happens when that fall brings three of a colour together. The simplest set-up is a jewel of colour A sitting on top of a line about to clear, with two more A jewels waiting one row lower in the next columns. Diagonals count, so a jewel that falls one row can join a diagonal as easily as a row. Build these set-ups on the sides of the well, where they are out of the way of the third column.
The third column
Every stick comes in above the third column and drops from there. If that column has fewer than three free cells, each new stick touches down with part of it still above the rim, and unless you slide it away at once the game ends, even when the other columns are nearly empty. Once the column is full to the top, the game is over. Keep it the lowest column in the well, and when it climbs, spend a stick or a Magic Jewel on clearing it before building anything else.
The Magic Jewel and the clock
In Classic, a Magic Jewel can appear once you have cleared 30 jewels, about once in every 40 sticks. It clears every jewel of the colour it lands on, wherever they are, and the fall afterwards often sets off a chain. Land it on the colour you have most of. Speed is the other limit: at level 0 a stick falls a row every 0.8 seconds, by level 10 it is about 0.16 seconds, and it bottoms out at 0.05. Cycle the jewels while the stick is high, and use soft drop only once it is in the right column.
Flash: dig, don’t build
In Flash only the ringed jewel matters, and it sits in the bottom row, under five rows of jewels. Clear the columns above and beside it first: once its own column is open down to it, a stick with two of its colour at the bottom finishes the round. The well speeds up as you clear jewels here too, so a long Flash round gets harder, not easier.
About Columns
Jay Geertsen, a software engineer at Hewlett-Packard, wrote Columns in 1989 as a way to learn X11 programming on HP-UX. Colleagues ported it to the Macintosh and MS-DOS. HP then sold Sega the rights, and Sega released it in arcades and on the Mega Drive in 1990.
This is a remake, not the original: the six-wide well, the three-jewel stick, the chains and the Magic Jewel follow the familiar rules, while the scoring and speeds are our own. Every colour carries its own sign, so the jewels can be told apart without colour vision.
Questions
Is this the original Columns?
No. It is a free remake in your browser with the same idea: a six-wide well, sticks of three jewels and lines of three in any direction, plus a Flash mode where you dig down to a marked jewel.
Do diagonal lines count?
Yes. Three or more of a colour in a row count horizontally, vertically and on both diagonals, and a single landing can make several lines at once.
How is the score calculated?
Each jewel cleared is worth 10 × (level + 1), multiplied by the step of the chain it was part of, and soft drops add 1 point a row. In Classic the targets are 4,000 points for Expert and 25,000 for Pro; in Flash they are 2:30 and 1:00.
Are my scores saved?
Yes, in your browser, with a separate best for each mode. Send your link from the profile menu to a colleague and the two of you see each other’s bests; nobody else does. The game pauses itself when you switch tabs.
