Monster Match 3

Most matching boards are built from inanimate things: jewels, sweets, coloured blocks. This one uses characters. Each monster has its own colour, shape and expression — one has bulging eyes, another has horns, a third grins wider than its face should allow — and the result is a set of pieces the player can name, which is easier to plan around than a particular shade of green.

That advantage becomes valuable once the grid gets crowded. Hunting for a set buried among many similar pieces goes faster when your eyes are looking for a creature rather than comparing tones two at a time, and mistakes drop accordingly.

The characters supply one more thing, which is the sense that the board is alive. Clear a group and the monsters react, turning a purely mechanical task into something with a little comedy in it. The blocks shelf at My Urban Eatery holds several boards of this kind, and this is comfortably the one with the strongest personality.