Butterfly Kyodai

Butterfly Kyodai runs on connect rules rather than stacking. The wings lie flat in one layer, and a pair vanishes when a path can be drawn between the two halves that bends no more than twice and passes through no other wing. Agame released this build in 2017, and the flat board makes it a scanning game: everything is visible from the first second, which is precisely what makes it hard.

The wings are the reason it reads differently from a tile pile. Colours sit close together, several species share an outline, and selecting the wrong twin costs the seconds you were trying to bank. Good runs come from recognising a pattern across the whole board rather than from working systematically along a row. The Connect 2 grid replaces the tile art and leaves the path rule alone.

The timer is strict and doubles as a currency. Quick matches push time back onto the bar, so a run turns into a chase: clear at speed and the bar refills faster than it drains, hesitate and it empties while half the wings are still in place. That exchange rate is what separates a board cleared in two minutes from one that dies at the halfway mark. If the layout is new, Mahjong Connect Tips explains it.

A hint points out one live pair and a shuffle scatters the wings again when the board has locked, but both draw on the bar you are defending. Most players keep them for the endgame, when the survivors are the awkward, walled-in pairs that need three bends and only have two.

The 800 by 500 stage scales up well, so full screen is worth setting before the first match — a connecting path with two corners is far easier to trace when the wings are large. Touch works too, and the single flat layer is friendlier on a tablet than a stacked layout would be. One more board of that sort is the Woodventure board.

1. Sweep the flat board for two butterfly wings sharing the same pattern and colour.
2. Check that a path can join them with at most two right-angle bends and no other wing sitting in the way.
3. Click the first wing, then its match, and the pair leaves the board.
4. String matches together at speed — each fast pair returns time to the bar.
5. Reach for a hint or a shuffle only once the wings that remain are boxed in.

• Open the edges first — wings on the outside of the cluster have the room a two-bend path needs.
• Chase the bonus — the bar rewards a run of quick pairs, so match what you already see instead of hunting a prettier option.
• Check the corners before clicking — two right-angle bends is the ceiling, and a third one means the pair is not legal yet.
• Save the shuffle — it costs bar time, so it belongs on a genuinely locked board and nowhere else.
• Play Butterfly Kyodai in full screen — larger wings make the near-identical colour pairs separable at a glance.