Blockers

* Match 4 Crush
* **Blockers**
* Candies
* Desserts
* Jelly & Garlic
* Characters
* Miscellaneous

Blockers are the most common game pieces in Match 4 Crush; there are three (3) types, regular, functional and dynamic.

Typically, blockers are designed to obstruct matches and create obstacles, they may:

1. Prevent a player from accessing or using candies (example: buttons, crystal, order borders, spirals, pancakes, cinnamon locks, waffle coats, frosted coats)
2. Prevent candies from occupying a space until the blocker is cleared (example: icing, carrotcakes, cupcakes and twirls)
3. Prevent desserts (in particular, beams effects) from performing their normal function (example: licorice nets, silver truffles)
4. Replace candies and even other blockers on the board (example: chocolate and spewers)
5. Spawn more blockers onto the board (example: chocolate fountains, spewers, fences)
6. Prevent a level from being completed (example: fences or spirals overpopulating the board to create a ‘reshuffled 100 times – no more possible matches’ scenario. It is possible with spewers and fountains but very unlikely)
7. Prevent candies from matching (example: studs and a variety of candy cane fences)

Typically blockers occupy one hexagon cell on the board, the exceptions being spirals and banana split sundae’s which take up 4 hexagons and the fences and studs which go between 2 hexagons. Blockers can be very annoying by threatening the combination of candies. Every blocker has unique properties, some are more susceptible to special effects while others have resistance or are not affected at all. Some blockers are harder to remove than others, immune to many effects or even permanent throughout the level.

Blockers are the main obstruction on the board, so it’s advisable to clear them as quickly as possible in most levels. Deciding which blockers to clear first presents a challenge. In collect order levels, players may also have to collect blockers to fulfill an order. Nearly every level contains at least one type of blocker. Levels can have three to eight different types of blockers, or even more.

Despite blockers being pests, some can be useful:

1. Chocolate can engulf more impeding blockers
2. Spewers can replace resistant blockers with less troublesome ones.
3. Spewers and fountains can help fulfill orders by spawning needed blockers.

All destructible blockers can be destroyed by removing all their layers. Blockers (example: spewers) can be made indestructible, making their removal from the board impossible.

Immoveable blockers are attached to a hexagon and can not move.

Moveable blockers are mobile, so they are not attached to a hexagon, instead they move around the board as candies do.

Encasing blockers entomb other game pieces underneath. When a candy beneath an encasing blocker is matched, a layer is removed from the encasing blocker.

When a candy is part of a match, an ‘adjacent hit’ is delivered to all the surrounding hexagons.

When a dessert is detonated, a hit is delivered to every hexagon in range of the effect (example: explosion, beam or lightning)

A strike by a special effect, an adjacent hit or a match made underneath an encasing blocker are ways to remove layers from blockers. Though please keep in mind some blockers:

1. Are immune to special effects.
2. Resist adjacent hits.
3. Are extra sensitive and lose two layers when struck by SFX.
4. Change during their lifecycle. At the start, a blocker may be immune to adjacent hits, but become susceptible once a certain number of layers are removed. An encasing blocker may start immune to color matches, but once a certain number of layers are removed, color matches become possible.

Functional blockers have the properties of regular blockers except they also effect change on the board. A functional blocker performs a particular action in response to a player action.

A dynamic blocker has the same properties as both regular and functional blockers, but in addition, dynamic blockers can change, grow and move around, all in unpredictable ways. Unique to Match 4, they are a true instance of NPC (non-player/non-playable character).

Blockers which are not functional nor dynamic are regular.