In this game, colored gems fall from the top of the screen in groups of three. Any time three or more adjacent gems of the same color line up vertically, horizontally, or diagonally they will disappear. Any gems above them will then fall down; if these create new groups of three or more gems, those too will disappear, leading to chain reactions.Your job is to score as many reactions and chain reactions as possible before the gems reach the foul line. If any gems remain over the foul line after all reactions are complete, the game will end.There are eight types of gems. The first six appear as stable colors: red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, or magenta. As mentioned, getting three or more of these in a row of matching color will make them disappear.The next type of gem is the wild gem. These appear in threesomes and flash colors. Wild gems behave as a”wildcard”and can complete threesomes in any direction. Note that the three wild gems in a row vertically will always complete a threesome with each other, so wild gems will not remain on the screen after they are dropped.The last type of gem is a”bombergem”One of these will appear after every 63rd group of gems to match the completion of a level. If a bomber gem hits another gem, all gems of that color will disappear. If it hits the bottom of the screen, the bottom row will be replaced with wild gems, possibly causing a chain reaction with other gems and awarding a special bonus.In addition to showing the current set of gems, the game will show the next set to the right of the top of the playfield.Changes for this release:
Second rev today. This one supports a proper pause function: press RESET briefly during the game to pause. When the game is paused, it will show the STRATOGEMS title but all the gems will be gray. Press again to unpause. Holding RESET or SELECT for about a second will abort the current game and return to the title screen.
http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=77817&st=25