Christmas Puzzle

Christmas Puzzle looks like every other tile board for about thirty seconds, and then the clock becomes the whole game. Matching three dolls clears them and nothing else happens. Matching five or more pushes the timer back up, which turns a simple colour puzzle into a question of whether you can afford the small easy match sitting right under your finger.

The line you draw does not have to be straight, so the board is usually hiding a bigger group than the one you spotted first. Trace further before releasing. Late in a run, when the timer is short and the board is crowded, that habit is the difference between a few more seconds and the end.

How to play

Press on a doll and drag across its neighbours to draw a line through three or more of the same kind, then let go to clear them. Anything you can reach with one unbroken line counts, so it pays to keep dragging past the obvious three. Groups of five or more return time to the clock, and since the clock is the only thing that ends a run, those are the matches worth hunting for.

Controls

Hold down the left mouse button on a doll and drag the pointer across the ones next to it, releasing when the line covers everything you want cleared. On a phone or tablet it is the same movement with a finger: press, hold, drag, lift.