Marbles – rules

Marbles is a logic game for one player. Coloured marbles lie on a 9 by 9 board. You move them to line up marbles of one colour: such a row leaves the board and scores. You play until the board has no room left.

How to play, step by step

Step 1

The board

The board has 81 squares, 9 rows of 9. The marbles come in 7 colours. Above the board, the “Next” bar shows the 3 marbles that come after your move. Beside it is “Best”, your best score in this game. A game starts with 5 marbles on the board.

Step 2

Move a marble

Tap a marble: it bounces in a gold frame. Then tap a free square and the marble goes there. A marble travels only over free squares, up, down, left or right, never diagonally and never through other marbles. A square it cannot reach flashes red.

Step 3

Line up five

When 5 or more marbles of one colour stand in a row, across, down or diagonally, they leave the board and you score. In the easier version 4 marbles are enough (step 6). Two rows made by one move both count.

Step 4

New marbles

A move after which nothing leaves adds the 3 marbles from the “Next” bar to the board, and the bar shows the next 3. A move that made a row adds nothing: you play on. When the new marbles make a row themselves, it leaves too and scores.

Step 5

Undo one move

The “Undo” button at the top of the screen takes back your last move. Only one move can be taken back at a time. The coming marbles are fixed in advance, so after an undo the same ones come again.

Step 6

Pick a version

In the Games window, under Marbles, pick “Clear: 5 in a row” or the easier “4 in a row”. Your pick stays for the next games. Each version has its own best score and its own Ranking.

Step 7

The end of the game

The game ends when the board has no free square left. The “Game over” window shows your points, moves, time, the rows you cleared and your best score. “New game” deals a new game, “Retry game” the same one again.

The rules in this game

Marbles is played in many ways. Here the rules above apply.
A 9 by 9 board, 7 colours, 3 new marbles after a move without a row.
Rows count across, down and diagonally.
The deal, not chance, decides where new marbles land: whoever plays the same deal gets them on the same squares, as long as those squares are free.
Two rows made by one move count apart, and a marble they share counts in both.

Scoring

Move	Points
A row of 5 (the “5 in a row” version)	10
A row of 6	24
A row of 7	42
A row of 4 (the “4 in a row” version)	8
A row of 5 in that version	20

The longer the row, the many more points: a row of length n gives n × (n − the shortest row + 1) × 2. Every finished game goes to your statistics and the Ranking with its points; a deal played again counts apart.

Tips

Watch the “Next” bar: keep room for the colours that come soon.
Keep the middle of the board free: marbles from the middle reach everywhere.
Sometimes it pays to wait with the fifth marble and add a sixth: a longer row gives many more points.
Do not shut marbles in the corners: a marble with no way out blocks its square for the rest of the game.