Hi,

So I thought I’d share my strategy how to get a good score in Novoludo.

First, some explanations on terminology:

Aligning 5 in a row or a column gives us a worm power up.
For every 80 exploded tokens  a super star drops in.  Also, sometimes you get lucky, and you get one beforehand.

If you activate it, the game goes into slow motion and you can make combos that are “sticky”. I mean, they don’t blow up immediatly. This is perfect for trying to get 5 in a row or column because normally, this is much harder to do.

First important fact is, that the faster you are, the higher the score is that you get per move. This is not easy to do, and the multiplier quickly resets so it isn’t the most reliable way to get a good high-score. Listen to the audio. If it goes higher, you’re getting more points for each move.

Another important fact is that each consecutive cascade scores more than the previous one until the board completely resets. A cascade is when more than 1 set of gems gets destroyed before the game stands still again.

There are therefore 2 key components that you need to master:
1) Make a worm using 5 in a row. Worms give you a LOT of points. Use the super star as efficiently as possible to get worms. Scan the board to find the places where you can align 5 of the same colour. Expert players might even get 2-3 worms with one single super star. Super advanced players might focus on preparing the board to get 5 in a row BEFORE even getting the super star ;P

2) Try to activate the worm power ups in sequence (not together) just as you think that the board resets, to maintain the cascade multiplier. If you are good enough, you’ll get another super star right as the worms explode. Then you can chain from one super star mode to another without ever breaking the cascade multiplier. As soon as the board resets, your score resets back to 200 points per move, so this is really bad for your maximum score potential. However, if you manage to switch from super star mode, to activating the worm and back, you can get massive amounts of points for each token that the worm eats, and for each combo.

Additionally, try being as fast as possible at the beginning. If you get 5 in a row and get a worm, all the better. After 80 gems have been destroyed, you are guaranteed that you’ll get a super star. A perfect run would be to have 5 in a row IMMEDIATELY, go into worm mode, destroy as many gems as fast as possible, and get the super star as quickly as possible. Once in super star mode, you should try staying in it for the full duration of the game. I’m not sure what the score would be if you did it, but it is more than 1 million.

Another pro tip. The longer the worm, the longer it lasts. Your worm can be up to 8 long.  Prioritise more worms, rather than longer worms.

Last tip, when the worm is active, you can still continue to make combos. This is super tricky, but gives you that extra score.
Hope you find this informative and good luck getting to the million,

Alex