Reef Busters is a vibrant underwater pixel-art puzzle game where your goal is to clear a board made of colored pixels. You win the level by using matching castles to send fish after every pixel until the board is empty and every fish has finished its dive!

The Basics of Busting

The game is all about keeping your castles working and managing your space. Here is the simple loop:

• Pick your castles: At the bottom of the screen, you’ll see Queues (vertical columns) filled with colored castles. Tap a castle at the front of a queue to pick it up.
• Fill the Holder: The castle moves straight into one of your Holder slots. You have 5 slots, meaning you can have up to 5 castles working at once.
• Automatic Fishing: Once a castle is in a slot, it does the work! Its fish swim out automatically, grab matching pixels they can reach, carry them to the exit hole and dive in.
• Fish Count: The number on a castle is how many fish it has left, and it drops by 1 every time a fish is sent out. Once a castle sends out its last fish, it disappears. Fish already on their way still finish their delivery.

Managing the Holder

The Holder is your workspace, and it’s limited! This is the most important part of your strategy:

• Watch the Space: A full Holder is a warning, not an instant loss. You’ll lose the level only if pixels remain and, for a split second (0.75 seconds), nothing at all can happen. You’ll see a highlight on your last empty slot as a warning.
• Stay Strategic: Fish can only collect pixels of their color that they can reach through open space. A castle with no reachable pixel of its color waits in its slot and takes up a precious spot until a route opens. Check the board before you pick a castle, and clear other colors first to open the way. When the pixels around it are cleared, a waiting castle starts working again with no extra tap.

Power Up Your Game

Need a little extra help clearing a tough board? You can use Pre-Boosters (chosen before you start a level) and Boosters (used during the level) to tip the scales in your favor:

• Reach covered pixels: Use the Propeller to fly a marked castle above the board and reach pixels that are covered.
• Blast tough colors: Try the Rainbow castle, whose fish can take any pixel color, or Bomby, the shark that bites a 3x3 area of pixels.
• Manage a full Holder: Use Merge to combine matching castles, Add Slot for one more holder slot, or the Hermit Crab to send an idle castle back to its queue.
• Reach deeper Queues: Use the Claw to grab a castle from behind the front row.

And that’s the sweet secret to busting. Keep your castles working and your Holder happy!