Line blaster

**Line blaster** is one of the elements in *AlphaBetty Saga*. It is created by matching words of 5 or more letters. Last letter in word became a line blaster.

## Appearance

Purple tiles with yellow pointers top, bottom, or corners.

## Usage & behavior

When a blaster is played it 'fires' clearing the letters in the direction of the arrows

* Entanglers & mousetraps will be removed leaving the letter underneath
* Rocks will be cracked and eventually removed displaying a letter in their place (except on Cheddar Spreader levels where crowns do not affect Rocks.)
* Closed codex blockers are unaffected while open codex blockers will be removed displaying a new letter
* Crown magnets will release their crowns, be removed, and display another letter underneath
* Exclamators! will be removed displaying a new letter
* Move stealers will be removed displaying a new letter
* If there is no blocker, one bubble per tile will be cleared
* If there is no blocker, cheese will spread partially along the line (cheese may not spread the entire line and typically will not spread across dead space in the board). On some levels, the blaster must be 'on the cheese' to spread it, while on other (usually lower) levels the blaster will spread cheese without being on a cheesy tile as long as it fires through a cheesy tile.

Blasters are very valuable for:

1. Making more points
2. Causing a cheese to fall quickly
3. Clearing many bubbles quickly
4. Spreading cheese quickly
5. Removing entanglers (vines), mousetraps, exclamators, and crown magnets.
6. Breaking stone blocks
7. Releasing crowns from Magnets
8. When playing a Word Frenzy level, any crowns removed by the blaster will add one letter count to the word being played even when not within the word itself. The key to reliably making words of 7, 8, or more letters in word frenzy type games is using Crowns.

When a blaster clears another blaster the additional blaster will also fire clearing tiles in the direction(s) it points, and so on if additional blasters are fired

## Types of blasters

7 or more letters create a blaster that will fire in all directions: vertically, horizontally, and on both diagonals:

6 letter words create a blaster that will fire in either vertically & horizontally OR on both diagonals:

5 letter words create a blaster that will fire in either vertically OR horizontally OR on one diagonals: - or | or / or \ -- that is, only on a single column, row, or diagonal.

## Controlling direction

For 5 & 6 letter words, the direction of travel to reach the FINAL LETTER will control the the direction of the blaster

5 letter words will have only the direction of entry, horizontal, vertical, or on a single diagonal

6 letter words will have a horizontal AND vertical direction if enter on the horizontal OR the vertical, while words entered on the diagonal will have both diagonal directions

To control direction you must find more 5 & 6 letter words to be able to chose the one in the best direction (and location)

## Value & Strategy

A large part of the intermediate strategy play is learning to make blasters from longer words

Becoming an advanced player requires learning to control the DIRECTION of the (5 or 6 letter) blasters.

In most games, especially cheese falls, the vertical blasters are worth more than the horizontal which are usually worth more than diagonals because they typically allow the cheese to fall more quickly or many tiles to be cleared (e.g., in bubble burst levels)

However, part of advanced strategy in the game when making 5 or 6 letter words is to choose the direction of the blaster based on the type of game and the current board conditions and location of the blaster.

Best is to just make 7+ letter words and have the blaster fire in all directions.

**Warning:** In cheese fall games a blaster created UNDER a cheese will remain so that even if this is the last tile under the cheese the cheese will NOT be able to fall to the bottom until the blaster is played on another move.