Rules! Tips, Cheats and Strategies

Rules! is a fantastic new puzzle game of speed and memorization from TheCodingMonkeys, and as you know if you’ve searched us out, it’s damned challenging. Want to get a leg up? Looking to break the rules? We’ve assembled a quick tips guide to help you up your high score.

The First 10 Rules

You really should memorize these on your own if you want to succeed, but if you’re struggling and you need a cheat sheet, here are the first 10 rules of Rules!.

1. Tap the numbers in descending order
2. Tap greens
3. Tap odd numbers
4. Tap nines
5. Tap animals
6. Tap whales
7. Tap monsters
8. Tap green monsters
9. Tap mustaches
10. Tap tens

Rules Are Often Paired

If you think remember all of these rules is a challenge, look for patterns. Rule 5 and 6 are “clear all animals” and “clear whales,” so really, it’s just a case of clearing one animal type before the rest. You’ll find pairs of rules like this at different points as you progress. Treat them in your mind as one rule with two steps – it sounds silly, but it works for us.

Numbers Can Have Multiple Pictures

Remember which numbers match with which images can help you, but only to a point. The deeper into the game you get, the more you’ll find that numbers will sometimes have multiple images they can be attached to. The number 1, for instance, starts out with a little yellow monster. Get to Rule 11, however, and you’ll see it attached to the yellow monster and a red bird.

Speed Matters

As you’ve no doubt gathered by now, there’s a clock that’s always ticking down to your doom. With every level you complete, that clock will gain back precious seconds — but if you’re not completing those levels fast enough, you won’t have enough time banked to progress when it counts. Practice, practice, practice – once you memorize rules, work on doing them as fast as you can. This will get your clock count as fat as possible.

Mistakes Cost You Time

If you thought you could tap up a frenzy to get through every stage without thinking, you’re dead wrong. Every wrong tap will penalize you going into the next round, costing you time on the clock. Take a look at the previous rule and you can see why this is a bad thing.

Jim Squires

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Jim Squires is the Editor-in-Chief of Gamezebo. Everything you see passes his eyes first, so we like to think of him as "the gatekeeper of cool stuff." He likes good games, great writing, and just can't say no to a hamburger. Also, he is not a bear.