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Jewel Match Snowscapes is a Match 3 style video game, where you can build your very own Christmas cottage as you play the game and gather the different currencies! What sets Jewel Match Snowscapes apart from other jewel games is its festive atmosphere. The music always has a cheerful holiday vibe, and there are fun little touches everywhere – like gingerbread houses hidden among the trees and Santa hats perched atop reindeer antlers. It’s hard not to get into the Christmas spirit while playing this game! As one of the more festively themed Windows 8 games, it helped bring holiday cheer to players during that season.
To clear a stage, you need to follow a series of steps. First, clear all the snowy tiles by making matches inside of them. While this may sound simple, there are plenty of things that might prevent you from doing so. Chained tiles can not be moved until a specific combination is made with them, boxes need to be broken by making matches near them, safes are similar to boxes but require more than one match, and so on.
What this game also has are different items that are not for matching, but for bringing to the bottom of the screen. This is the only way to make the premium currency needed for the cottage, so you should make this a priority.
Other than that, you might also find several keys. These keys, once they hit the bottom, can unlock things according to their color. Within the same stage, they might unlock access to the rest of it, or they might even unlock access to another screen; you see, levels are mostly composed of more than one screen, and you have to complete them all to beat a level.
In the relaxed mode this is a non issue, but in the more challenging ones like timed or limited (limited moves, that is), this is a more pressing matter. Not having the whole playing field in view can make the strategic thinking more complicated. This increases the difficulty level of the game!
The game also comes with a shop menu, separated from where you buy upgrades for the cottage. In here, you can buy beautiful decorations for your snowscape, or useful items for the Match 3 mode of play.
The decorations available are all thematic with the Christmas spirit; pine trees and stars and candy canes. Some of the rare, more beautiful decorations can cost a lot, so be careful on your spending! Speaking of which...
You may end up having to buy items or power-ups for the main match 3 gameplay. Things like a hammer to destroy troublesome tiles, bombs to destroy multiple rows, and many more.
Plenty of these power ups are obtainable during gameplay, but this offers an instant access to these things. And as a plus, you can access the shop while in the middle of playing a stage; useful for when you are particularly stuck.
However, just be careful on your spending since the coins that you use in this shop are the very same you need to build the cottage. If your goal is to complete the building, you might want to think twice before buying anything here.
The game’s visuals are very pretty, and in a way keeping a solemn tone. On its most important visuals, that is on the building space, there are no shining lights or big bright colors. This keeps with the theme of a lovely, cozy home where you could take your family for the holidays.
As you build it, you can keep adding to the feel of the place as you add decorations; nothing too out there, as we discussed, but still charming visuals like lights that give a warm mood to the otherwise chilly landscape.
For the matching sections, the game does turn into a more cheery, playful mood, since we are in a faster paced mode that requires us to be alert. Colors are more vibrant and each tile has a 3D animation as we hover over it.
If you enjoy these free games, you will love this list of our 10 Best Puzzle Games!