8. The phases of the game

Understand the early, middle, and last phases of Lumines Remastered gameplay. Learn strategies for each stage to maximize your score and clear blocks effectively.

It helps to think of a game of Lumines as several games, or phases, each with its own optimum strategy.

A. The early phase. This encompasses the first few blocks, and the next few, if you're lucky enough to use them right. In this phase, you want to concentrate on both: 1) deleting all blocks of one color, which gets you pointage, or; 2) deleting all blocks on the screen entirely, which gets you even more mondo pointage. If you're skilled enough to do both these things a few times in the first 10 or so blocks, you'll "start" the game with several tens of thousands worth of points. To help with that, see below, in the section on Puzzle Mode, the solution to the "Clear All" puzzle. There's a technique to clear the screen of all blocks that will get your mind thinking right about how to do this. I've used similar techniques several times in the early parts of the game to build up lots of points before even starting the next phase, which is...

B. The middle phase. This is the phase that lasts most of the game. If the early phase lasts maybe 30 seconds or a minute, the middle phase can last hours. In this phase, you want to put together everything you've learned playing Lumines, avoiding checkerboard, managing treys and oneys, and using time line tricks, combos and destoyers to pop your scores even higher.

C. The last phase. This comes when the screen gets nearly full, and is a different length for different people. Depending on how well you handle the frantic activity of making squares under pressure, this can last either a few seconds or a few minutes. Here, there's not a lot of tricks to offer; your instincts and luck with either pull you through for a few extra points, or you'll go down fast.