The short version
A well-built, dependency-free match-3 that swaps licensed candy art for plain geometric shapes and adds four genuinely distinct modes (timed, moves-limited, holed boards, easy). Swap controls were confirmed correct on both touch and mouse via a live-state-driven test, not just a visual guess.
Biggest strengths
- Swap-to-match controls confirmed genuinely correct on both platforms - a real board-state-derived valid move was computed, a real touch/mouse drag was dispatched at the exact resulting coordinates, and the resulting score change was verified programmatically, not just eyeballed
- Four selectable modes (standard timer, moves-limited, board with holes, easy mode) give real replay variety beyond a single ruleset
- Fully responsive layout - the same build correctly reflows from a wide desktop grid menu to a stacked vertical mobile menu, and the 9x9 board resizes cleanly to fit a tall phone viewport
Biggest weaknesses
- The bundled landing page (index.html, not used as this listing's entry point) previously called out to a third-party hit-counter beacon on every load - removed before shipping
- A minor, harmless bug in the language auto-detect logic makes an out-of-bounds array read and requests a literal "lang/undefined.json", producing a stray 404 on nearly every load; the game still falls back to English correctly regardless
- Visuals are intentionally plain flat-colour shapes on a simple castle backdrop - functional but not much to look at
Who it's for: Match-3 fans who want a free, ad-free, no-download version of the format with a bit more mode variety than the average clone.
Our recommendation: play
7.4 / 10
Opening
Shape Clear is exactly what its author calls it: a from-scratch simulation of Candy Crush's core mechanics, built with plain geometric shapes (circles, triangles, diamonds, hexagons, squares) instead of any licensed or lookalike candy art. It ships as a small, dependency-free Phaser build with no external trackers in the actual game.
Controls, verified properly
Match-3 controls are exactly the kind of thing that look fine in a screenshot and fail the moment a real finger touches the screen, so this was tested the rigorous way: the live board state was read directly out of the running game (gameScreen.board.shapes, a flat 9x9 array of shape types), a genuinely valid adjacent swap was computed from that real data, and the exact resulting screen coordinates were derived from the board's own view metrics (boardView.x/y/gridSize) rather than guessed from a screenshot. A real drag was then dispatched — a full mouse-down/move/move/up sequence on desktop, and a genuine multi-point touch sequence via CDP (touchstart → ten touchmove waypoints → touchend) on a simulated 390x844 phone. In both cases the score moved from 0 to 60 and the board visibly cascaded, confirming the swap gesture is correctly wired end to end on both input types — not just visually responsive.
Mode variety
Beyond the standard 60-second timed board, the main menu lets you toggle "Moves mode" (swap out the timer for a limited move count), "Board with holes" (adds obstacle gaps to the grid), and "Easy mode", and these combine. Toggling modes and starting a run was confirmed not to crash or corrupt the board state.
Rough edges
Two real but minor issues were found. First, the standalone landing page bundled with the repository (not used as this review's entry point, which points straight at the actual game) contained a third-party visitor-counter image beacon; it's been stripped from the installed copy before publishing. Second, the game's language auto-detection has a genuine off-by-one bug: when none of the browser's preferred languages match a supported one, the loop index runs past the end of the array and the code requests lang/undefined.json, which 404s on the server. It's cosmetic — the English base translation is always loaded first and the game plays correctly in English regardless — but it is a real, reproducible extra network request on most loads.
Final Verdict
A clean, honestly-described, ad-free match-3 clone that earns its shelf spot on genuinely verified touch and mouse controls and a bit more mode variety than most clones bother with. Not visually ambitious, and not hiding what it's inspired by, but solid and correctly built.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Swap-to-match controls confirmed genuinely correct on both platforms - a real board-state-derived valid move was computed, a real touch/mouse drag was dispatched at the exact resulting coordinates, and the resulting score change was verified programmatically, not just eyeballed
- Four selectable modes (standard timer, moves-limited, board with holes, easy mode) give real replay variety beyond a single ruleset
- Fully responsive layout - the same build correctly reflows from a wide desktop grid menu to a stacked vertical mobile menu, and the 9x9 board resizes cleanly to fit a tall phone viewport
- Clean MIT-licensed, dependency-free build (Phaser only) with no third-party analytics in the actual game entry point
- Honestly self-described by its own author as a from-scratch simulation of Candy Crush's mechanics, with plain shapes standing in for candy art - no trademark or brand-lookalike concerns
Cons
- The bundled landing page (index.html, not used as this listing's entry point) previously called out to a third-party hit-counter beacon on every load - removed before shipping
- A minor, harmless bug in the language auto-detect logic makes an out-of-bounds array read and requests a literal "lang/undefined.json", producing a stray 404 on nearly every load; the game still falls back to English correctly regardless
- Visuals are intentionally plain flat-colour shapes on a simple castle backdrop - functional but not much to look at
- Openly and directly modelled on an extremely well-known existing game, with the mode variations as the main differentiator