Ringlink strategy guide

The rules

The board is 6 rings wide and 7 tall, in five colours. Every colour also has its own inner mark, so you never have to rely on colour alone. Press on a ring and drag through neighbouring rings of the same colour (up, down, left or right, never diagonally). Lift your finger and a link of two or more rings clears. The rings above fall down and new rings drop in from the top.

Dragging back onto the ring you just came from takes the last ring off your link, so you can fix a wrong turn mid-drag. You have 60 seconds. There are no lives and no penalties: a link of one ring simply does nothing. If the board ever has no possible link, it shuffles itself.

Link points grow fast

A link of n rings is worth 10 × n × (n − 1) points. In plain numbers:

• 2 rings: 20 points
• 3 rings: 60 points
• 4 rings: 120 points
• 5 rings: 200 points
• 6 rings: 300 points
• 7 rings: 420 points

Why one long link beats lots of short ones

Look at that list again. Three separate pairs clear six rings for 60 points. One six-ring link clears the same six rings for 300, five times as much. Points grow roughly with the square of the length, so the single best habit in Ringlink is to keep dragging. Before you lift, look at the ring under your finger and ask whether another same-colour neighbour is touching it.

Snaking helps. A link can turn as often as you like, so the long links are usually not straight lines but zigzags through a clump of one colour. Trace around the edge of a clump rather than straight through the middle, and you will often pick up two or three extra rings.

Loops: the big move

Draw a link of at least four rings and then move onto a ring that is already in your link (not the one you just came from) and you close a loop. The smallest possible loop is a 2 × 2 square of one colour: go around all four rings and step back onto the first one. Links only move up, down, left or right, never diagonally, so three rings are never enough. You will see “Ringlink!” and when you lift, every ring of that colour on the whole board clears, not just the ones in your loop.

A loop scores 15 points for every ring of that colour on the board, plus the normal link points for the rings in the loop itself. With five colours, about one ring in five is any given colour, so a loop typically clears a big slice of the board at once. A small square loop with plenty of its colour on the board easily outscores a long straight link.

One thing to know: once the loop closes, your link is locked. You cannot keep adding rings after that, so if you want a big loop, make the long part of the link first and close it last.

Hunting for squares

Because a loop needs a closed shape, the thing to scan for is any 2 × 2 block of one colour, or a ring of one colour around a different-coloured ring. When a fresh batch drops in, take a quick look for squares before you start your next link. They are the most valuable thing on the board.

Also think about what a loop leaves behind. Clearing a whole colour drops lots of rings at once, and the colours that remain bunch together in new ways. That often sets up the next long link or even another loop.

Gravity is your helper

Rings only ever fall straight down. A link along the bottom of the board moves every ring above it, while a link near the top barely changes anything. If the board looks thin on long links, clear something low to stir it up. If you can see a great link waiting near the top, leave it be and work lower so it does not get broken up.

Pacing a 60-second run

With no lives to lose, the only enemy is the clock. A quick scan for loops, then a long link, then a quick scan again is a good rhythm. Do not spend ten seconds hunting for the perfect seven-ring chain when a five-ring one is under your finger. When Ringlink is the Daily Challenge, everyone starts from the same board, and your best of three ranked tries counts on the daily leaderboard. Free Play is there whenever you want to try a new pattern without it counting.

• Link points: 20, 60, 120, 200, 300, 420 for 2 to 7 rings.
• Keep dragging: one long link beats several short ones.
• Close a loop to clear every ring of that colour: look for 2 × 2 squares.
• Build the long part first, close the loop last.
• Clear low to shake the board up; leave good links near the top alone.