Walkthroughs

Futurama: Game of Drones tips and tricks - Make the drones bite your shiny, metal...

Tips for everyone but the delivery boy

Futurama: Game of Drones tips and tricks - Make the drones bite your shiny, metal...

Good news, everyone! This is the only time I'm going to ham-fistedly force in a Futurama quote, as is required by law when writing articles about the popular cartoon.

If you liked that, then you're probably also enjoying the recent Futurama: Game of Drones, but may have found that it's a bit tricky compared to your usual colour-matching puzzler.

Thankfully, we're here to offer some guidance on how to get those pesky drones in order, and rocket your way to a three star rating in each level.

Know your patterns

Forget everything you know about match-3 puzzle games. Futurama: Game of Drones settles for nothing less than a chain of four drones, and that changes things dramatically.

For one, you don't need the drones to be in a straight line. You can also match drones diagonally or in four spaces directly adjacent to one another in a diamond-ish shape.

Don't be afraid to just swipe drones around for a while – you might just make a shape you hadn't yet considered.

Futurama: Game of Drones

Be aware of what you need to make a super drone as well, as creating these are the key to reaching the top scores.

You need to match five for a line droid, which clears everything in a straight line, six for a bomb drone, which explodes twice and clears everything around it in a small radius, and seven for a prism drone, which clears every drone of the same colour that it is matched with.

Make sure to merge these special drones as well, especially the prism drones. A merged prism drone will wipe out most of the board in one go, scoring huge points and helping immeasurably towards your objective.

Take your time

This may seem like an obvious point, but it's easy to dive right into the game and start matching with wild abandon, hoping for success.

Instead, take the time to survey the board when you start a level, and use the first move to make the largest chain you can in order to create some much needed super drones.

Futurama: Game of Drones

From there, try and plan ahead for future chains. Look for clusters of drones that aren't yet connected, and try to drop matching drones from above by matching other colours of drone.

The hexagonal grid implies weird movement of drones, but in actuality they all just descend in their pre-designated columns, so keep that in mind when considering what might drop.

Use your special powers

As you play, your character's special meter will start to fill up, and eventually you'll receive a big flashing text advising you to make use of the power.

Do it. Even if you only need to make one more move to complete the level, use your special power instead.

Futurama: Game of Drones

Powers don't count as one of your moves, and for each move you don't use, you get a special drone added to the board when you complete the objective.

These final special drones are what will push you up to the three star ranks, so you need as many of them as you can get.

Don't get distracted

There's plenty of other things going on in your board usually – boxes blocking your drones' way, high scores to get, and so on.

But don't let yourself get too distracted by these things. Completing the objective in the fewest moves possible will usually score you the most points anyway.

If the boxes aren't proving to be a major hindrance, just ignore them and work towards your goal. They'll likely get destroyed as you play by chains created from your matches.

Ric Cowley
Ric Cowley
Ric was somehow the Editor of Pocket Gamer, having started out as an intern in 2015. He hopes to take over the world the same way.