Seeing the impossible levels thread in the Support section made me think of level 6471, the de facto impossible level that got me stuck a few weeks ago. I decided to return to the level, and what do you know? King made the level easier! It now has 27 moves instead of 22 moves, and the objectives remain the same.
After about 10 attempts, I managed to win with no moves remaining.
I think King's assumption is that you'll have an active win streak, so you'll start with a couple extra moves and a couple color bombs. Even if you don't, chances are you'll have ads to watch for extra moves. Thus, the hardest part is getting adjacent color bombs at the bottom to knock out all the blocker layers.
However, what if you had no win streak, no extra moves, and no boosters?
It's still possible, but the strategy requires deep knowledge of dispenser spawning rules and a whole lot of luck.
All dispensers are governed by at least two rules. Rule 1: Spawn the element until X copies are present. Rule 2: Regardless of how many copies of the element are present, spawn another copy every Y moves. Rule 1 is always processed before rule 2. Sprink dispensers work slightly differently, but that's not relevant here.
Level 6471's color bomb spawning rules are as follows:
- Spawn color bombs until 1 of them is present.
- Regardless of how many color bombs are present, spawn 1 additional color bomb every move.
Because rule 1 is always processed before rule 2, your first move at the bottom will give 2 color bombs instead of 1, assuming that no other color bombs are present. Your first move detonates no color bombs, your second move detonates 2 color bombs, and from there, the number of color bombs you detonate is almost perfectly tied to how many moves you've made. Assuming an average rate of 1 color bomb per move, you'll detonate 27 color bombs before you run out of moves. Also, if you can't make your first move at the bottom of the board, you've probably already lost.
Now where are you going to get the last 3 color bombs???
The obvious answer is extremely lucky cascades in the top and bottom rows, but that's not what I'll be talking about.
What makes this strategy especially difficult is that while color bombs are doing their explosion animation, they're still considered to be on the board. Thus, combining 2 color bombs will only cause 1 to spawn from the dispensers. That's because the game sees 2 color bombs already on the board, so rule 1 doesn't lead to any spawning. Rule 2 still succeeds, so you get 1 color bomb. In order to squeeze extra color bombs into your attempt, you have to get creative.
Striped candies and jelly fish are your friends. They can be used to detonate an extra color bomb per move. Use color bombs at the bottom to set up cascades that activate striped candies and jelly fish. After the first color bomb is activated, another color bomb will appear at the bottom. If done right, the cascade(s) at the top will activate a striped candy or jelly fish. If the striped candy and newly-spawned color bomb are aligned, the striped candy will hit the newly-spawned color bomb. If the Sprink and licorice swirl objectives are complete, the jelly fish will always hit the newly-spawned color bomb. Your next move at the bottom will spawn 2 color bombs assuming that no additional color bombs appeared.
This slightly simplified diagram shows how it would work with a striped candy:
(I apologize for slight misalignments.)
You end up using your only color bomb to detonate another color bomb.
When a single color bomb detonates, it removes a single color going from left to right, top to bottom. The candies at the top get cleared first, but that doesn't matter because candies always settle before matching. The important part is the "left to right" part - in the bottom row, if a color bomb removes multiple candies of the same color, the next color bomb will always spawn in place of the leftmost candy that got removed. This part matters for CB+CB combinations early on and for striped candy alignments, but it is optional for cascades involving jelly fish once the Sprink and licorice swirl objectives are already complete.
That was a lot of information! All you have to do is maintain an average detonation rate of 1 color bomb per move while successfully doing this "squeeze an additional color bomb detonation" strategy 3 times within the move limit. There's a lot of luck involved, but it's doable!
Here's the end of my winning attempt:
Ironically, I only pulled off the aforementioned strategy twice. On my last move, a lucky cascade made a color bomb in the top row, and a special candy detonated it, but anyway, that's how you beat level 6471 without a win streak, extra moves, or boosters.
My advice to anyone who's getting to this level for the first time: Please just watch the ads for extra moves.
