Go on a quest that is within your enemy’s world to find precious Elemental Stones in Empires & Puzzles: Match-3 RPG

You are forced to make bad moves in the tutorial by the game and so you lost the battle against the Dark Lord. After a brief battle with the boss, you find out that it was a distraction tactic and Elena, the Captain of the Royal Guard, escapes with an Elemental Stone. The game’s tutorial continues as it shows you how matching a certain number of gems will create a special booster. 

After helping Elena get rid of bandits, you return to the base and it is a beautiful castle. Your assistant is a pretty girl named Vivica with a pet dragon flying next to her. You will need to build an iron mine, storage and then a house. Fortunately, you can speed build them without costing you extra gems. 

The girls then realize that a Summoning Gate is open, allowing you to summon a hero from beyond the gates. The game takes you between building new essentials for the castle, leveling up your heroes. As your guides teach you how to navigate the world of Empires & Puzzles, you can only tap places where there is a large arrow pointing. You can play the game however you want, but you have to follow instructions of the game. 

When battling demons and bandits, you and your heroes are on the bottom of the screen, and there is a board with pretty gems in between you and the bad guys. Match the same colored gems to turn them into troops, and they will attack the enemy for you. There are 5 colors at most on the board: green, blue, red, purple and yellow. Each color represents an element: ice, fire, nature, dark and holy. 

Matching four tiles of the same color will create a Dragon Shield, while if you have five of the same gems, it will generate a Power Shard. A Dragon Shield transforms the surrounding gems into a cross shaped attack towards the enemy. When you activate a Power Shard, it will turn all the same colored gems into attackers. To use the booster, you can tap on the shield or shard, or match it with a swipe.

There can be more than one wave of enemy, and the game will tell you before they show up. The colored circle beneath them is their element. To hit and kill the monsters, match the gems directly below them and your troops will attack. If you match gems that are not underneath, your army will miss. The reminder of elemental weakness is on the top left corner. While it will deal more damage to the enemy, every attack counts. 

Every match will charge your heroes according to their element. Once your heroes accumulate enough mana, activate their special abilities by tapping on their picture. Special abilities can be healing your team members, attacking one or all the enemies.

With Empires & Puzzles, you have to be a multi-tasking commander. Your people need a safe place to stay, and your heroes have to keep training to become stronger so you can defeat the Dark Lord. Remember to look after your castles, upgrade your buildings for resources like food and iron. Stronger troops will deal more damage to enemies before they hurt you. 

To have a strong and successful team, you need to have food to train your heroes and troops. Then you need iron to upgrade your buildings and build new structures. While your screen looks complicated, there is no time limit to doing tasks and checking what needs to be done when you are home. 

While you wait for your castle to build and food to harvest, head to the map to progress in the map towards the Dark Lord. Killing monsters and bandits to get some loot for crafting and leveling up your heroes. Heroes are important to you as a commander, because they have special skills that will help you win battles quickly. 

Before building a WatchTower to join the open world where people can attack you, be sure to level up your castle and buildings. Winning missions gives you gems, the premium currency in game that speeds up upgrades and builds, you can even recruit better heroes in your team. 

Empires & Puzzles: Match-3 RPG is for you if you want more on your plate than just hitting monsters. Share your tips on how to be a brilliant commander at the comment area below so that more people can like the game.