Guide
Crystal Jewels: special gems, combos and Mining runs
Which shapes forge which special gem, what happens when you swap two specials together, and how the endless Mining mode really works.
Crystal Jewels is a match-3 puzzle set in the Crystal Vault. The rules start familiar — drag a gem toward a neighbour, make a line of three or more of one colour — but most of the depth sits in the special gems and in Mining, the endless mode. This post is a cheat sheet for both. Play it in your browser or on Android.
The shape decides the special
- 4 in a row → Line gem: sweeps its whole row or column
- 5 or more in a straight line → Rainbow gem: removes every gem of one colour
- A horizontal run crossing a vertical run → Bomb: blasts a 3×3 area
- 4 of one colour in a 2×2 square → Lightning gem: strikes a distant gem, favouring the tile below the heart stone
Swap two specials together
Specials combine when you swap one into another:
- Line + line clears a full cross.
- Bomb + bomb opens a 5×5 crater.
- Bomb + line widens the sweep to three rows and three columns.
- Rainbow + bomb turns a colour into bombs and sets them all off.
- Rainbow + lightning sends a bolt through every gem of the partner colour.
A good habit: before you fire a lone special, check whether you can steer it next to another one first.
The campaign: sixty stages, three maps
Crystal Meadow (stages 1–20) has fewer colours and generous moves. Amethyst Cavern (to stage 40) brings thicker stone and the first ice. Diamond Summit (to stage 60) uses the full palette and often asks for stone and two colours at once. Goals are listed beside the board: chip layered stone, collect a set number of gems, break all the ice, or walk the heart stone down to the bottom row.
Mining, explained
Mining swaps the move counter for a countdown. After a gem-only start, two rock rows rise. Each time you clear the exposed layer — or let the timer run out — one new rock row rises and the clock resets. The run ends when rock reaches the top.
- Every gem you remove damages each rock it touches, and line beams, bombs and lightning hit rock in their path.
- Mining always uses four colours, so matches come more often than in late campaign stages.
- The clock speeds up to ×1.5 when rock fills more than half the board and ×1.7 above seventy percent, so keep the stack low early.
Cracks, not numbers, show how tough a rock is: more cracks, fewer hits left.
Screenshots and details are on the Crystal Jewels page, or start a run now.
