Caz Berry

Caz Berry takes the one thing every other match three game does for free and removes it. When berries are picked, nothing falls in from the top. The rest of the patch settles down into the gaps and that is all. A patch of thirty berries only ever gets smaller, which turns each board into a puzzle with a fixed answer instead of an endless stream.

The move is the familiar one. Swap two neighbouring berries, and if the swap lines up three or more they are picked. A swap that picks nothing is refused and costs you nothing, so you are free to test ideas by eye. What changes everything is the consequence. Picking a berry from the middle of a column drops everything above it, and a careless clear on the left can strand the last two raspberries on the right forever.

Every patch hands you a limited number of swaps, and the round ends when the swaps run out, when the patch is empty or when no legal swap is left anywhere. The rating is the berries you left behind. A completely empty patch is three stars, five or fewer is two, twelve or fewer is one. Two tools help you plan. Undo steps one move back and hands the move back with it, three times per patch, and restart lays the whole patch out again exactly as it began.

Twenty four patches add more kinds of berry as you go, from a three berry field to a six berry tangle. Eight baskets track the milestones from a first star to five perfectly cleared patches and twenty stars in total, and the pickers board ranks your star count against the other pickers in the field.

Caz Berry is played in portrait and works fully offline. There is no account, no advertising, nothing to buy and no timer. Patches, stars and baskets are stored on your device, and the settings screen carries one clear data button that closes every patch but the first.