How to Get More Points?

[DALCOhstangultion]

I'm trying to get more points in the puzzles to get the associated "Achievements." According to the help pages, we get more points by making matches quicker (thus increasing the multiple) and leaving more regular tiles on the table after finishing the gold ones. In general, I can't get enough points. For instance on the very first puzzle (which is trivially easy since it's set up so we don't have to dig up matches), the best I've been able to get is something like 2020 points out of the 3000 needed. My wife (who is good at these kinds of things) gets about the same. The other puzzles are even worse (I've only managed to get the "point" Achievement on one puzzle).

Is there some secret I'm missing?

[Dohi64]

tried the first level twice, didn't manage more than 2k and change either, even with the 5x multiplier the second time (whatever it multiplies). not going for 3 stars on every level though, just enough to unlock every level, same way I played the first and mahjong world solitaire, which are carbon copies basically.

[DALCOhstangultion]

If we only get one star on all the levels, we can't even start the 2nd group of puzzles. With two stars on all the levels, we can only finish the first three groups of puzzles. Since I was able to get the "points" (or 3rd) star for only a handful of levels, I was locked out of the 4th, 5th and 6th groups. IOW, I was locked out of half the game. So, I uninstalled it and wrote a negative review.

[Dohi64]

yeah, 1 star each wouldn't be enough, but of the first 10 levels I got a few 3 stars and the others are on 2, which is what I usually aim for (1 is not that great and 3 is not that important, might be too much effort or unnecessary) and should be enough to unlock most of the stuff, then a few retries for a few more stars until the rest is done. we'll see how it goes, maybe they did something different with this game.

I also use the shuffle thing liberally, mostly because the more tiles remain the better, as opposed to 'clear the whole thing', but I can't always remember where the gold ones are.

[DALCOhstangultion]

Based on the few 3 stars I got, I'd say that shuffling is the key to getting that 3rd star. But, in that very first level, shuffling doesn't seem to do any good. No matter how many times I shuffled, the path to clearing the gold tiles was always pretty much the same and required clearing a good portion of the regular tiles.

Another problem with the stars is that some of the levels don't have a "clear the gold tiles in so many moves" goal. They replace it with another point-based star. So, those few point-based (3rd) stars I got were countered by a couple where I couldn't even get the 2nd star because it was point-based instead of move-based.

[Dohi64]

yep, pretty much the same boat. I've just finished the 2nd level set with 88 stars, but 3 levels are still on 1 star because of the two point requirements.

[Dohi64]

I've just unlocked the final level set, let me know if you want my save file.

[Friend_Of_The_Cats]

I bought for relaxing but got point hunting , ending up in frustration - never fast enough , never enough points and too many draws .. -_- having a challenge is one thing (and a good thing) but this seems just not really balanced (or I am really just very very bad player lol )