Clear Arrows Start game

Strategy for levels 21 to 57: in the dark and under pressure

Strategy

By Dirk Werner, Dipl.-Psych., Psychologischer Psychotherapeut (licensed in Germany)

Published on · Last updated on

From level 21, the nature of the game changes. In levels 21 to 50 the grids grow from 22×22 to 48×48 and from 181 to 639 arrows, the arrows are hidden, the board turns, and wrong taps on traps are expensive. Levels 51 to 57 are the opposite: small grids from 8×8 to 11×11 with 22 to 30 arrows, but each with its own combination, including the only levels with coloured arrows. This page is not a full walkthrough. It offers rules of thumb based on what the game actually evaluates, each with the numbers from the levels.

1. Hidden mode: the edge is the only way in

In levels 21 to 51 as well as 54 and 56, the arrows are hidden behind question marks. Where you start is not a matter of style here. From level 25, not a single inner arrow is free at the start. At the edge it is 85 % in level 25, 91 % in level 40 and 93 % in level 50. Even in level 21 the difference is large: 87 % of the edge arrows are free, but only 15 % of the inner ones.

One thing matters here: a tap in Hidden mode does not just reveal, it also tries to remove the arrow. If the hidden arrow is blocked, it costs a life. There is no tap that only takes a look. Tapping an edge cell is therefore the safest way to gain information: in the large levels it works nine times out of ten.

2. Revealing: a 3×3 window for two moves

Every tap reveals the arrows in the eight surrounding cells, diagonals included, for two moves. After that they are hidden again. Whatever you see during those two moves, you have to remember. The windows overlap if you stay close to your last taps. If you work your way along the edge instead of jumping all over the board, you therefore always see part of what you have just revealed.

Example: the first moves in level 25

Level 25 has a grid of 26×26 with 271 arrows, 147 of them traps. Everything is hidden, the clock starts at 18 seconds, and the board turns after every 8 correct moves. Cells are given here as row/column, counted from the top left.

Of the 100 edge arrows, 85 are free; in the interior it is 0. The top row holds 26 arrows, 22 of them free. A tap on the top edge is therefore an attempt with good odds, but without knowledge. The example proceeds like this: the first tap goes to the top left corner. After that you move right along the top edge and tap whatever the last window revealed and is recognisably free. The window stays open for 2 moves.

On the top edge the window is easy to read. An arrow that points up is always free there. An arrow that points left is free as soon as nothing is left to its left. An arrow pointing right is blocked as long as there are still arrows to its right.

This adds up to 8 moves before the first turn, from column 1 to column 9. 6 of them go to arrows the window has shown: pointing up, or pointing left with an empty row in front. 2 are taps without knowledge, the first one and the one on 1/9. In between, 1 arrow is left alone, the one on 1/8. The window shows it pointing right, and there are still arrows to its right. Tapping it would have cost 2 lives, because it is a trap with an armed trap next to it. The next arrow then lies outside the window, so the tap after that is again one without knowledge.

Up to this point there have been 0 misclicks, and all 3 lives are still there. Then the board turns. Of the 263 remaining arrows, 8 are free, 7 of them at the edge. The top row, a moment ago the safest place on the board, is locked: of its 18 arrows, 1 is free, because what pointed up now points right into the row. For the next cycle you therefore look for another edge where the turned arrows point outwards.

3. Layer by layer, inwards

A thought experiment shows how the large levels are built: you remove all free arrows at once, then all the ones that are free after that, and so on, without any turn. In level 40 that is 142 arrows first, all at the edge. In the second round it is 122, on average 1.7 cells from the edge, in the third 84 at a distance of 4 cells. Level 50 looks just the same (174, then 145, then 114). The board opens from the outside in, like an onion. Your order should follow suit: clear the edge first, then the next row, then the one after that.

4. The clock: one move every few seconds

The starting time drops with each block: 18 seconds in levels 21 to 25, 16 in 26 to 30, 14 in 31 to 35, 12 in 36 to 40 and 10 in levels 41 to 50. At the same time, every correct move gives back 7 seconds times the combo multiplier, at most 28 seconds and never more than the starting time. In levels 41 to 50, a single correct move therefore gives back seven of the ten seconds; from the third in a row it is 14, and the clock is full again.

With 639 arrows this sounds daunting, but it is not, as long as you keep the rhythm: the clock measures the time until your next correct move, not the time for the whole level. If it does run out, it costs a life, the clock restarts and the combo drops to zero. The edge supplies enough moves for this; at the start of level 45, 168 arrows are free. Things only slow down when you search the middle for a free arrow before the edge is empty.

5. Turns: the rhythm differs by level

The board turns after a fixed number of correct moves; misclicks do not count. Each turn rotates all arrows 90 degrees clockwise, and it locks the board almost completely. In the starting position of level 30, 103 arrows are free; after an immediate turn it would be 8. In level 45 the number would drop from 168 to 7.

How often this happens varies a great deal from level to level. In levels 42 to 46 and 49 the board turns after every third move, in 31 to 37, 39 and 40 after every fourth, in 22 to 24 and 26 to 29 after every fifth. In between are levels with long pauses: level 21 turns every 12 moves, level 30 every 15, levels 38 and 50 every 18, levels 47 and 48 every 20. In levels with a short rhythm it does not pay to plan far ahead. In each cycle, take the free arrows that would be blocked after the turn. In levels with long pauses, on the other hand, you can clear whole rows in one go. If everything is blocked after a turn, deadlock protection removes up to three arrows for free.

6. Traps: almost every misclick hits one

In levels 21 to 50 as well as 53 and 56, a wrong tap on a trap costs one extra life for every armed trap directly next to it. In the large levels, most blocked arrows are traps: 62 % in level 25, 77 % in level 40, 87 % in level 50. A blocked trap has on average 0.7 to 0.9 further traps next to it, in levels 30 and 40 up to four. A misclick in level 50 is therefore almost certain to hit a trap and costs on average almost two lives instead of one.

Free arrows, on the other hand, are always safe, even if they are traps. That makes rule 1 doubly important: in these levels, a misclick in the interior of the board is almost always an expensive one.

7. Levels 51 to 57: small boards, their own rules

The last seven levels are small, but each one combines things differently:

For the colours the rule is: red before blue before green. A free blue or green arrow still costs a life as long as a red one (and, for green, a blue one) is still on the board. Many arrows in these levels, however, have no rule colour at all and are allowed at any time: half of them in level 52, and as many as 23 of 30 in level 56. In levels 54 and 56, no red arrow is free at the start. There you begin with the arrows without a rule colour until the first red one becomes free.

In levels 52 and 54 to 57 there are also shift-immune arrows with a turquoise border and a shield symbol, between two and six per level. They do not turn with the rest. Their direction stays fixed even after the next turn, so you can build a plan on them that survives the turn.

8. Use assists wisely

Solution move and Magic Solve cost coins depending on difficulty: 35 and 50 in hard levels, 50 and 75 in expert levels; a Magic Solve from your stock is used first. On the fail screen, “Continue with +1 life” gives you a life back once per attempt, for the price of a Magic Solve. Assists pay off most where a wrong tap would be especially expensive: in the interior of a hidden board with many traps. The Hint first takes one from your stock, otherwise a life, and on your last life it is locked; it takes away every star above the first. So it never costs more than a misclick, and less in a trap cluster.

In short

The basics for the first twenty levels are in the strategy for levels 1 to 20. Which mechanic applies in which levels is explained on the Mechanics page.