Homescapes is a level-based puzzle game which puts players in charge of renovating an outdated house through a series of tasks accomplished by playing 3 puzzle-match stages. The main character of the game is Austin, a dear butler, who intends to fix up his childhood home and prevent his parents from selling it. The game starts with a decent, warm video intro where Austin travels back to his parent’s house to relieve precious memories but he finds out that the whole place is falling apart. The player must help Austin through matching 3 puzzlers in order to restore the house to its former glory.
Unlike other 3 puzzle-matches using a map and allowing you to replay past levels, only the current stage will be available in Homescapes. Each time you complete a mission, you’ll earn one star. Stars are used to help Austin rebuild his parents’ home and progress the story. You’ll be given certain tasks across levels, like i.e ‘put up wallpaper’ or ‘fix the stairs’, that will cost stars to complete. You’ll then spend the stars you earned by matching three pieces of the same type in order to complete Austin’s home renovation requests. While you have to play the match-3 types-puzzles to complete the renovation tasks, the opposite is not true. You could save up stars and never do any of Austin needed renovations while only playing through the stages, but the purpose of Homescapes is rebuilding the house and designing it the way you want. It’ll be your aim to help Austin redecorate the entire house, though this might be a fearsome task, we have some tips and walkthroughs for you.
Some tips to consider while playing:
Before deciding to make a slide, analyse how the objects are settled; you have to check if you’ve spotted a block move more convenient than others. The blocks that are dropped into stages are random, but where the blocks are placed is certainly not. When you start the stage, look for a good spot for a chain reaction. You’ll start the stage oftenly with a special block or with a big chain. Just look carefully for the best place to start.
Getting rid of three blocks is one way to make progress, but it’s not the most effective. To make fast progress, the best thing to do is grouping together as many blocks as you can, than to create a chain reaction deriving in special blocks. A row of four blocks can create a Rocket, which clears a row either horizontally or vertically, a group of four creates a paper aeroplane, a group of five will create a bomb and a row of five will create a Disco ball. When these special blocks are mixed together you can activate even more special abilities, such as a multi-row rockets by combining a rocket and a bomb, or exploding paper aeroplanes with the bomb and aeroplane combo. Rockets are considered the most useful special blocks in the whole game, if you’ll know how to use them properly.
More difficult stages will make you clear out jelly or boxes, and you can use as well rockets to quickly wipe out the entire row. Keep in mind that you can slide the rocket onto the next row, and then it’ll set off only after it’ll be moved in a new row. You can use this to smartly position rockets and clear out plenty of objectives. The basic boosters are as follows:
Paper Airplane – combine four objects in a square to make a Paper airplane. A paper airplane will clear four objects around in a cross shape and then fly to a random spot on the board and clear a difficult item (i.e chains, jelly, etc.)
Rocket – This booster appears when you combine any four objects. A rocket will then clear a full row or column of objects, depending which direction the rocket is facing.
Bomb – you get one of these when you combine 5 or more objects at a traversing point. A bomb will clear out all the objects surrounding of three squares deep.
Disco ball – match five in a row to get this booster. Switch the disco ball with another object and it will clear every object of that kind on the board.
Also, in some stages you might need to cover the background with carpet. Clearing blocks isn’t enough to create fresh carpet, where at least one of the cleared blocks has to be already on the carpet. In these stages, it’s important to not clear random rows of three if they’re not touching the carpet. Luckily, bombs, aeroplanes and rockets can all help in spreading the carpet, but again, they’ll need to touch carpet first.
Every move you have left over once you’ve beaten a level is transformed into a special piece on the board. You’ll mostly create rocket pieces but every now and then you’ll end up with bombs. After they’re created, all pieces will be set off simultaneously for a crazy explosion that will earn you a certain amount of bonus coins. Try to conserve your moves to the best of your ability for those bonus coins at the end of the game.
If you’ll not be content with the decor you’re laying down, you can actually change it at any time with just a few coins. Just hold your finger over an object in the house you’d like to change, and you’ll be given fresh options on what you can change it to. Objects in the house don’t really impact the overall game, but they’ll certainly satisfy you the most.
The higher levels of Homescapes can be really challenging and if you aren’t prioritizing correctly, there are some levels that can be almost impossible to beat. When you’ll have a level with combined goals ( i.e clear 15 boxes, 10 red objects and 6 green objects), clearing the big obstacles should take priority over clearing specific items. For example, if you have some items that are in chains, clearing those chained items should take priority over getting all the blue objects you need. As you work to clear the chained items, there’s a good chance you’ll be clearing a lot of the colored items you need at the same time. If you avoid the big obstacles like boxes, chained items or jelly blocks, you’ll have a very hard time getting past a level.
Also, it would be a bad idea if you use your coins to continue a level unless you’ve really been struggling with it and know you can beat it within a couple more turns. For the same 900 coins you spend on giving yourself 5 more moves, you can have five more hearts of health. This is would certainly a better investment of your coins, so our last piece of advice is to use your coins wisely.
Day 1 Walkthrough:
The very first day as Austin starts with getting at your childhood home. For him, it’ll bring back so many memories as he approaches the front door. Austin notices promptly their old carpet outstretched in the main lobby. His old parents aren’t home yet so he plans to make some quick adjustments just before they come back home. Your first task will be to replace the old carpet with a new one. You may change the carpet immediately using one star that you’ll already have. As soon as you pick the new carpet Austin’s parents return home. Olivia, the mom, will love the new carpet and even though she suggests that you need to have some rest after your journey. She then awares you that the guestroom is set up for you. You confess your desire to stay in your old room, as you haven’t seen it in ages and you feel pretty nostalgic about it. Your old room is full of dust and you’ll have to clean the whole place first. The following task of cleaning the room will also need a star to be fulfilled (basically every task demands a star). After successfully cleaning the room you take a sit at your old armchair. You notice how old the armchair is and you decide to have it replaced. Solve the given puzzle and then you’ll be able to replace the old furniture with a bright new one. While being in the same room you’ll reveal other tasks regarding your old rooms’ redecoration. Firstly, the bed needs to be replaced, while from the newspaper you find out an occasional spring clearance on beds. After placing the bed as you wish you notice a small box with your school trophies which need to be placed somewhere properly. This is when the new task of replacing the cabinets shows up. Subsequently the door rings and it’s the courier with your lost baggage. The baggage looks like it’s your parrot (Captain Flint) with its cage and your new task will be immediately to put the bird into a new cage as your old room is actually pretty small. When Cpt. Flint enters its new cage mom and dad show up at your room. Mom confesses that she don’t even recognize your room anymore but she tells you that you don’t have to help them with the renovations. Father then interferes telling you that besides they are selling this house. You seem shocked and ask them how they can do such a thing when this house means so much to you. Father continues the clarification and tells you that they can’t keep a house so big so and so old while being at their age. Austin secures them that they don’t have to worry as he will help them repair the house so that they won’t want to sell it anymore. After the dialogue your first day will be over and the time for some sleep has come while a lot of things are waiting to be done the next day.
Day 2 Walkthrough:
A new day begins… You instantly hear a strange sound after your morning workout. It’s your dad that just knocked one of the paint cans over the staircases in the main hall. Now you’ll have to clean the hall and patch up the situation. In this puzzle, you’ll have to arrange moves inside the given carpets in order to make it stretch all over the puzzle. Your next tasks after the event will be to install a bookcase and to hang a wallpaper as well. Installing the bookcase will need two stars though. The puzzle with these ones will put you laying the carpet likewise. You’ll need to use the hammer to free certain chained blocks inside each puzzle on this levels. After setting the new bookcase, dad William will come to check and even that he didn’t want a new bookcase at all, he still likes the new one a lot. While you are still not entirely happy, you think that laying a new rug in front of the armchair would be great. After successfully replacing the bookcase and changing the wallpaper, you decide to do something with the floor. Mom and dad believe that the floor won’t need any intervention but you insist that walking on this parquet is unhealthy. After dad tests the floor with a kick it comes out that you were right, and the floor indeed needs to be fixed. However as the day flew by and the time to go in bed has come.
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