Stars Level 1536

[Bill_G_III]

Has anyone gotten close to achieving any stars on this level?

I’ve cleared it a few times; my best is 278,500, when I was lucky to have a Darksphere drop onto the board and I threw in a Starwhal to get extra points at the end.

(1 star is 348,500, 3 stars is 458,500).

Title is "Sling up!", with 30 moves to turn the board to Gold.

Now through level 1550 - all 3 Stars, except level 1536.

Anyone have success? Advise please.

Something may not be right. Compare level 1536 to level 1537:

1536 has less crystals on the board - 53 vs. 69.

1536 has less moves 30 vs. 35.

Yet 1 & 3 star score for 1536 are more (by a lot) 348,500 & 458,500 vs 142,500 & 252,500.

What gives?

[bobbiepatenaude]

@Bill_G_III many tries, 0 stars. 280+ but those points weren't memorable. Darksphere 3 times and once I threw in mustaches for the points, but couldn't match my own high score. Not giving up playing it until an update offers me new levels. In the meantime, I agree, not possible... HELP EA?!!

[Bill_G_III]

@bobbiepatenaude Thanks your reply. I keep trying also, have reached 324+, but still below the one star level.
Hey - EA - can you look into this level and respond?

[Bill_G_III]

@EA_Darko Any chance you could look into this level and respond?

[thecoolestchris]

I am a perfectionist and eventually burned some coins to do it. I played the level as normal (getting a decently high score, 250K+) but still had a couple dark stones in the top row. Then I got a 6 (hypercube), and kept using my power cubes on a color that wouldn't hot these stones, bought an extra 10 moves after I lost, and after 5 more power cubes, I had a high enough score to get 3 stars and I ended it with power cubes. The power cube strategy was risky because you always run the chance of a chain reaction happening and blowing up the stones even when you try to avoid them. 

[Bill_G_III]

@thecoolestchris You the best! Gave you XP. I just now got 475+ for three stars. Used many tile swappers to form hypercubes (what you call power cube), matched them to flame gems to score points and used 15 extra moves. If I didn't like the board, I used scramblers.
I took me 5-6 tries suing this approach, so I spent many gems and coins in the process. I still think EA designed this level incorrectly.

[thecoolestchris]

@Bill_G_IIINo problem. I thought when you make 5 in a row it was called a "power cube" and 6 in a row was a "hyper cube", but I could be wrong... I usually just call them "5's" or "6's". I think your way was really dangerous though... what if a scrambler made a flame gem explode near the stones, etc, but glad it (eventually) worked out for you.

Usually I get the 6 in a row on accident, but on level 1536, the middle column has a height of 8+, so you could use magic to force one to occur... E.g. if you have Tile Swappers, make a column of red, red, white, red, red, white, red, red; and then use a 5 (power cube?) somewhere else on the map to touch white so that the 6 red fall on top of each other and make a 6 (hyper cube?). Then you use that to get a whole bunch of 5's (power cubes?). I think for this level, you have to make sure that they don't fall sideways onto the floating side platforms, but I don't really want to waste my magic now to test it out. My intuition is that it's probably better to do this 6 trick when the floating platforms are at the top of the map, but I'm not 100% sure.

Hope that makes sense to anyone reading this.

[Bill_G_III]

@thecoolestchris Thanks, Chris - you definitely the coolest!
BTW, you can also make a 6 (Darkshere) without using a 5 by lining up gems in a row with tile swappers.
Row 1 would have any, any, red, red, any, any. Row 2 would have red, red, any, any, red, red. Then make a match in row 3 to drop the two reds from row 1 into row 2 forming 6 reds in row 2.

[thecoolestchris]

@Bill_G_III Wait wait, you definitely have something here, but I think I'm missing something-- if you make a match in row 3, won't we displace one of the red gems as well (since a match of 3 gems in row 3 will affect 3 columns)? Or are you making a square below it in row 3 or something?

I'm thinking this (R=red, X=any, G=green):

XXRRXX
RRXXRR
XXGGXG

make the match in row 3 (greens) -->

XXRRXX
RRXXRR
XXGGGX

drops columns 3, 4, and 5 in rows 1 and 2:

XXXXXX
RRRRXR
XXXXRX

which makes a red flame gem. So I'm missing something here... I definitely think it's possible, but I'd need an extra row or two above, maybe make a square match/flame below it, the first column drops two rows and the second column drops one (because the flame gem occupies a space, etc). Something like that?

[Bill_G_III]

@thecoolestchris You are correct – my mistake.
At least 4 rows are needed, not 3. And it needs a match 4, forming a flame gem.
I have done it two ways:

FROM SIDE:

XXRXXX
XXXRXX
RRGGRR
XXGXGX

Make match 4 to form green flame gem in row 4:

XXRXXX
XXXRXX
RRGGRR
XXGĜXX

Which drops column 3 by 2 and column 4 by 1:

XXXXXX
XXXXXX
RRRRRR
XXXĜXX

FROM BELOW:

RXRRXX
XRXXRR
GXGGXX
XGXXXX

Make match 4 to form green flame gem in row 3:

RXRRXX
XRXXRR
GĜGGXX
XXXXXX

Which drops columns 1, 3, 4 by 1:

XXXXXX
RRRRRR
XĜXXXX
XXXXXX

Good catch!