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Link Match: rules and solving techniques

Match identical icons through a path with no more than two turns. This guide reflects the controls and win conditions in the current browser build. It is reviewed by the PocketJoy game-testing team and maintained by Long-Term New Media Limited.

How it works

The board is filled with paired icons. Tap two matching icons to clear them, provided a connecting path exists between them that turns no more than twice. Paths may run through the empty space around the outside of the board, which matters greatly — icons on the outer ring are almost always connectable because a route can travel around the outside. A hint button points out one available pair, you can reshuffle manually, and when no clearable pair remains the game reshuffles automatically with a notice, so a true dead end never occurs and you can always clear through to the finish. After selecting the first icon the status line prompts you to pick its partner, and choosing an unconnectable pair says so explicitly rather than silently doing nothing. Clearing everything completes the round; your time is recorded and your fastest is kept on your device.

Tips for clearing levels

The key principle is outside first. Icons on the outer ring have plenty of surrounding empty space to route through and are almost always connectable, and clearing them opens channels into the interior — every outer pair removed gives the icons behind it another possible route. Icons packed in the middle are usually enclosed on all four sides, so hunting for them early just wastes time. Another way to speed up is to scan by icon type rather than cell by cell: pick one icon, quickly locate every instance of it on the board, and judge which pair has a straight or single-turn path available. That is several times faster than reading the grid square by square, because human vision recognises instances of one shape in parallel while comparing squares one at a time is serial. For judging two-turn paths, a practical technique is to check first whether the icons share a row or column, which needs zero or one turn; if not, imagine travelling horizontally from one icon to some row, then vertically, then horizontally again — if that middle corridor is clear, the pair connects.

Common pitfalls

New players tend to look only for adjacent identical icons. Adjacent pairs are certainly connectable, but there are a limited number of them and they run out quickly, leaving you stuck and dependent on hints if you have never practised reading two-turn paths. The second mistake is leaning on the hint button, which costs time and does nothing to improve your own recognition, so your final result gets worse rather than better; it is best kept for genuine impasses rather than used as an accelerator. The third is not using the space outside the board. Many players assume paths must stay within the grid and therefore abandon a great many connectable outer pairs, when routing around the outside is entirely legal and often the only way through. The fourth is clearing without a plan. Working from the outside inwards keeps the board flowing, whereas clearing pairs at random around the grid leaves a knot of mutually enclosed icons in the centre that cannot reach one another.

Great for

Good for players who enjoy visual searching and chasing a fast time. The rules take a minute to learn and the difficulty comes from locating pairs quickly on a dense board, with a noticeable improvement in scanning efficiency as you play — that sense of a visual skill genuinely sharpening is the distinctive reward of the genre. The format descends from the 1980s Japanese mahjong-tile matching games, later evolving into this two-turn connection variant which became extremely popular across Chinese-speaking regions and is a shared memory of the internet-cafe era. Because of the automatic reshuffle there is no true dead end, so you never lose to bad luck and results depend entirely on scanning speed and path judgement. A round takes a few minutes depending on board size, which suits spare moments. All records stay on your device with no sign-up.

Highlights

The run panel shows elapsed time, pairs remaining and your fastest local result; the remaining count keeps you aware of your progress and lets you judge whether your pace is on track for a record. Two assist buttons cover different situations: hint marks one clearable pair outright, for when you genuinely cannot find anything, while reshuffle scrambles the board when you find it hard to read — at the cost of having to rescan, though sometimes faster than persisting. There is also automatic protection: when no clearable pair remains the board reshuffles itself with a notice explaining what happened, so the game never locks up and every round can be played to completion. After selecting the first icon the status line prompts you to pick a matching partner, and choosing an unconnectable pair explains that the two cannot currently be linked, so you know the problem is the route rather than the icons. Clearing the board shows your completion time with a play-again option.

Controls and local records

Simply tap two matching icons in sequence; no dragging is involved and mouse and touch follow identical logic, with enough spacing between icons to avoid mis-taps on a phone. Tapping a selected icon again deselects it so you can choose differently, with no penalty and no time forfeited. Because tapping is the only interaction — no long press, no drag, no right click — there is no functional difference between desktop and phone. Your fastest result is stored in the browser's local storage on your own device, with no account and nothing uploaded to any server; records do not travel to another device, and clearing browser data removes them. The language button switches between Traditional Chinese and English instantly, updating every prompt and result string without a page reload. Once the page has loaded, the game itself plays offline.

FAQ

Reviewed by the PocketJoy game-testing team · Operated by Long-Term New Media Limited · hklongtermad@gmail.com