Zen Match - Relaxing Puzzle Reviews

TL/DR: Game is fun at lower levels, but the upper ones are in winnable and a waste of time playing. Lazy programming with too many tiles so matching 3 on some tries is impossible in the first moves. Find a game where success is at least possible without help. This game was fun for about the first 2000 levels. At the beginning, it is fairly easy but builds quickly. Then at somewhere between level 2000 to 2109, the puzzles are impossible. There is no combination of times you can choose that will allow to win unless you use one or more bonus “cheat” tiles. It just gets frustrating to go through 5 tries at a level in less than 10 minutes only to have to wait 2.5 hours to try again. Also, the amount to play on goes up from 60 to 90 coins which makes it even harder to keep playing. It’s to the point where it’s not worth the time and ads to play anymore. In addition, the ads for this game are misleading in that the puzzle they show in the ad is never available. The “tournament” and other “competitions” in the game are jokes because they have a time limit, but it takes days of play to get through one level let alone the multiple needed to succeed at the tournament. Too many extras that are just not needed. Make the upper levels challenging but winnable with out needing to use a scramble or the extra tile spaces rather than being lazy at putting random tiles of too many varieties in the puzzle.

A really fun game at first. Can’t remember what level I deleted the game on but way over the 100th level. At first I enjoyed playing the game I didn’t make any app purchases at first. I simply waited until the live refilled which would take up to 30 minutes a life. I didn’t want to purchase to remove ads so I would exit app refresh and enter game again so I didn’t have to watch the ads. I noticed that once I completed this move ZenMatch would remove one of my life’s. I ignored it however I began to purchase coins for life’s. You need 400 coins to replenish 5 life’s. That’s an absurd amount noting the cheapest bundles only gives you about 175 or 200 coins. Once I started making purchases I noticed that the game became more difficult and with out the advantage of the help at bottom of screen shuffle 10 coins, back move 20 coins and remove 3 cards 60 coins, which you have to pay for in coins. This is expensive in coins. So I decided not to spend money on coins anymore which made it more difficult to pass levels. I had my final straw at losing a game and going to the are you sure you want to give up picture on your screen and seeing I had 15 seconds until my next life. So I exit that game just to get to the Home Screen and ZenMatch took my only life after the clock ended in 5 seconds. I don’t know if it was a glitch but I’m done. I deleted ZenMatch this game is not fun once you start making money purchases. It’s money trap.

if i could give this game 100 stars you bet your zen match booty i would 😍. this game has brought me so much zen it is unreal, really brings out the zen in zen match. the design is beautiful and i love getting new tiles. there is almost nothing wrong with this game and i will continue to play it until my very last dying breath. i will give all my money to ZenMatch if you asked. i am definitely your number one player as i am close to beating all the current levels. send me zen match merch or put me on the pr list i will support you and advertise you till i’m dead. honestly anyone complaining about ZenMatch just honestly isn’t that good! simple as that! 5 lives is plenty and waiting really isn’t that bad sometimes. people just need to learn a simple kindergarten rearm known as patience 😍. please never change what you do or how you do it because you have me reeled in so far there’s no going back. i could write about you for days baby but i gotta get back to my level 😍. sponsor me you won’t regret it i swear. give me brand deal ❤️

I love this game, and it is fun and relaxing, but I have a few problems. 1. The fact that it is nearly impossible to pass the hard levels. If you are anything like me, you will think “oh those people just aren’t trying” no really it’s hard. You need a gazillion coins to pass the levels. 2. The daily puzzle is how I get gold, but it means I have to watch a gazillion adds to get enough gold to fail a level again 🙄 3. Just today, I went in, got a few coins, 10 to be exact, cause that’s how much a shuffle cost, only to find out that the price on everything had been raised. Shuffles were now 15 coins, and redos 30. Yet it still only gives you 10 coins per level. If you wanna raise the prices, you have to raise the salary! 4. I want to play the thing where you clear the huge board, that doesn’t exist. In all, 3 stars, cause it’s fun and all, but I want those fixed.

Actually, nvm, they lowered the prices, but still, it’s hard, and I forgot to mention the thing where you match mystery tiles. It gets as far as a shuffle and a redo, but then you have to pay for the chest, and I’m not allowed to spend money on games even if I wanted to, but if I don’t buy the chest, then I can’t get anything else, so please fix that

When I have full lives and a lot of coins, this game is fun. But then I run out of lives and realize I need to wait a whole 30 minutes just to get one life. And then I finally get one life, and attempt the level, only to realize that the way the tiles are organized it’s almost impossible to beat the level, so I try one of the tools on the bottom of the screen. Each of these costs more coins than what you get for completing a level. So most of the time, you don’t have enough coins to use a tool and just constantly use your lives to try to complete a level that you basically can’t finish. And all of the things they have for you to do where you can “win” extra tools require you to pay to get good enough tools to actually help you. They just want money, past a certain level this game is just irritating and not any fun. Many times I have completed enough levels to win a chest, and I see that the line showing my progress is filled all the way to the chest…and then it proceeds to not let me open the chest. Another time it told me I had earned unlimited lives for 15 minutes, I finally filled up the bar and then again, it proceeds to not give me the 15 minutes of unlimited lives. Overall fun until you reach a little over the 100th level.

At first, this seems like a strategy game. You try to match up three tiles by uncovering certain tiles before other certain tiles. There’s a strategy to uncovering the correct tiles first and leaving others for later. I like that kind of strategy and working-things-out type of game. But very quickly, this game becomes a “luck” game. They start stacking the tiles in odd ways. You think that you’re going to uncover one tile that you need, but when you click on the tile on top of the one you need, you soon find out that there are three other tiles stacked on top of the tile you thought you could get to easily. That just stinks. Then there are the stacks of tiles at the bottom that you have to uncover. That’s all luck. If you click on the wrong tile and what you need is not underneath it, and there’s nothing to match in the mess up above, you’re out of luck. So I was hoping this was an all strategy game, and it really isn’t. I’m stuck at level 114 because I have no luck! It was fun for a while but it’s really lost its shine to me.

Also, how about awarding more than just 10 coins for passing a level? I spent 140 coins just to get past a level and then I earn 10?! The rewards are way off. They aren’t enough to give me the incentive to keep working on this. And for being a Zen game, it gets pretty frustrating pretty fast. Oh well.

I’ve been playing for a week, at level 317, have “created” 18 completed rooms which is your reward for playing. I’ve spent probably $40 on game play ‘coin’ in order to complete a level so I am allowed to add one more color to my ‘room’. But I’ve just deleted the game. Great concept, really enjoy the more meditative experience of gameplay, but the quantity of ads is simply too much - basically a 10-30 second ad every time you transition from one screen to the next: finish one game and want to go to the Home Screen? Ad. On the Home Screen and want to go update your ‘room’? Ad. Going back into game play? Ad. $5.99 to remove ads which I would be willing to do if the game wasn’t such a blatant pay-to-play setup. There are levels you simply cannot beat unless you use game coins - don’t get me started on the timed challenges of the daily games - some are just impossible without use of MANY game coins. I spend a lot of time and money on app games and this one just isn’t designed well enough to hit the sweet spot of ‘challenging but doable’ and I’m not interested in supporting a developer who clearly just wants to grab ad dollars and make players spend money to play with any real ease or enjoyment. Want to entertain your kids for a minute? This could work - but for anyone with an attention span, I believe this will just be a frustration.

I have played this game once and for some reason it locked up so this is my next time through. The game is overall great but some of these puzzles just cannot be beat without the cheat tools like the ‘shuffle’ for 10 coins or the ‘hold 3 cards’ in the alternate queue. Several times I have got locked in a puzzle and my cards are just not shown anywhere on the game board. The example I am quoting is level 229 and there are only 5 sets to finish the game. I have 2 suns, and 2 violets on my board and 2 other singles. All of the matches for the rest of the game are visible except for the sun and the violet. There is NOWHERE Left to hide the ones I need but still, I shuffle, nope, shuffle, nope, shuffle after 10 shuffles still no sign of either of my cards. That is just impossible but also, there is nowhere to hide them????? All the cards on the board are visible unless you stacked directly on top of the bottom, but the remaining matches make that a statistical impossibility…. I will not be spending and more money on the game as it is just a little too dumb sometime as far a a fair and fun gameplay. I like a challenge but there are still bugs to the game play and that ruins it for me. Long time player and I have had enough. If you like the game, it’s well done, but soon enough you will see it is not working correctly and it drains your coins to force you to buy more.

I loved wasting time on ZenMatch, I’m giving it two stars because I really did spend a lot of time playing it. If you don’t buy the no ads there are WAY too many ads. One before you start a level, one after you finish a level, one if you have to restart a level. On top of that after the first 50 levels or so the levels start getting really challenging. I’m currently on level 145 and I’ve been stuck on this level for over a month now. I’ve completed every single daily level so now there is literally nothing for me to do on ZenMatch besides try and fail again and again at the same level. Which is frustrating to say the least.

I’d love to see some new levels introduced into the game. Maybe a different play mode, one that isn’t level based and is just matching that the players can do when we’ve done everything else and are soft locked. It would also be amazing to see a difficulty rework. There are people who make it past this level(145) but they can’t do it without spending coins on undoes, a mix up, or a continue playing power up. That should never be the case for games like this and I struggle daily wondering if it’s worth me keeping the game around because of simple mechanics like this.

I liked the art of the tiles to match and enjoyed working out the puzzles, for a while. I actually spent real money to get the boosters that let you pass the hard levels, but all they did was take my money without giving me the boosters I paid for. So you beat the levels and get the tokens to decorate your zen room, but unless your favorite colors are all shades of brown, not much from which to choose. Occasionally there’s a dull blue or green, yippie. (Why the tiles have such pretty colors and the rooms have such ugly ones I’ll never understand . . . ) Then make your selections from those boring browns, spend the tokens, and surprise! Next time you log on, your changes are gone, you’re back where you were, however all the tokens spent are still gone and you have to earn them back again. Oh, by the way, lets say you click the support button for help, right? You get your choice of various articles available to read, none of which have anything to do with the problem. So you’re told to contact them for more help. Guess what? There’s no way to do it on site. I spent over an hour traveling down every rat hole, still nothing. Bet that really cuts down on wasted customer service time if customers can’t find you to complain. Congratulations, I’ll be deleting the game soon.

I really enjoyed this game until about level 170. At this point, like many other games with the same format of passing levels to accomplish a goal (word villas, project make over, etc.), it becomes impossible to pass levels without many power ups which require some kind of coins which cost real money to obtain (for the most part). They do not have any kind of daily rewards that are given. They have competitions where you can win stuff, but this requires passing levels which brings you back to needing coins and having to spend money. I have been stuck on level 178 for 4 days now and have used roughly 30 or so lives. I had coins and power ups in the beginning but used them all on this level and do not want to spend anymore money on the game to get more. Especially after having paid to remove ads which was $6.99 (higher than I’ve seen for any other game). Heck, I could buy more or less the same game on pc for that price and that would be the FULL game. I’m not sure why you can’t just buy phone games this way. I understand they are often being updated, but many games that you buy full version of still update as well, hints expansion packs. Phone games truly are money traps. I really need to stop hoping differently and finding myself disappointed.

Been playing for 4 days. This was a fun game at lower levels like most games. I’ve reached 139 and it’s impossible unless I add money to get coins. No way to add coins unless you buy them and at first they are easy to get when you complete a level, now it’s to hard to finish a level unless you got plenty of money to put into the game. I myself like free game apps, where you can earn what you need to play them. I played all day and never went up a level. The short game before the main game is not needed and don’t know why they put that in there. I finished the a few cute rooms but yet to figure out why I decorate them I get nothing for doing them. Two small match games every 10 hours let’s you win 1 mistake move and 1 switch all the tiles move, third of course wants to to add money. NOT at all anything like they advertise, maybe that’s at some ungodly level you will never be able to get too. Note that you don’t have to loss a life by when you see there is no possible way to win the level, log out of the game and reload and life is not lost.. thing is you can’t win!! Buying coins daily gets expensive. It cost $60 to keep playing, 20 to put tiles back, 10 to switch them around. Coins go super fast in playing this game :( not worth it, will be deleting it. Good luck!

Game was fun! Even got challenging (the good kind, keeping the mind sharp) after a about 20 levels. But then it went from being a fun slightly challenging game, to being near impossible. Bad model. You want people to buy coins, yes i get it. But making the game frustrating to use makes you lose players! I get you wanting people to spend coins to get more lives, therefore them having to buy the coins. But having to wait HOURS for 5 lives, on impossible levels, is definitely grounds for deleting. People dont want to be overly frustrated trying to play a good game, we understand you have to make money. The ads arent even a problem, its just not enjoyable to play. If youre going to make us wait hours for 5 lives, the least you can do is give us 10 lives and make levels after 100+ be NOT impossible. Ive been stuck on 272 (this isnt the first time im experiencing this) for days because i can never seem to get any card matches. I even spend the coins to continue on, and still matches are so spread apart its impossible! Please fix your app or i predict you will become one of the great games that unfortunately bite the dust and have to run an unskippable ad every round because you dont get the downloads you once did.

This game starts as all puzzle games do—way too easy. But it does start to get harder, and by level 150 or so, it can take days to get past a level, and that will go for a few levels before they become easier again.

My biggest complaints are two:
1) The daily games require an internet connection, especially for previous days, so they can show an ad about every other game. Trouble is, the daily games are timed, and the ad time counts toward total time for that game, which sometimes makes the games almost impossible (especially those that I finish with seconds to spare). The timer should not start until the last piece is in place. That’s just basic logic and fairness to the players. I lost 2 lives playing two previous days because I ran out of time thanks to the ads, but won the games the second try when there wasn’t an ad.
2) There is no way to contact support. The Support button takes you to an FAQ with no obvious “if you can’t find the answer, click here” link. Which is why I’m writing here, hoping some developer would see it.

I actually enjoy playing this game. However, I got caught up in purchasing the coins. It takes 30 minutes for the game to give a new life and is full at 5 lives (so 2.5 hours to have all the lives restored for free). If you are into the game, you have to pay for coins to continue. It takes 200 coins to replenish. Second money dump, if you get stuck in the game and want to scramble the towels or any of the other two ways of extending the life to continue playing will cost. Now, there are free ways to get these bonuses but they are few and far in between and are teasers to pay for them. I have been stuck at level 145 for a really long time. I think I advanced to this level only because I had been paying for these coins to continue the play so I could advance. Now at level 145, I decided just to pay for coins. I wanted to see how difficult it would be and how long it would take for me to advance. I have not been able to move to level 146. I REFUSE to give it another dollar now that the game is set up to take advantage of its consumers. As long as you pay, great. When you don’t pay, you can play but you won’t move. Cash Cow. Beware.

I have been a fan of matching games since I was young. I enjoy the reward of decorating a room with the flowers earned. I wish as the levels get higher, the cost of choosing the color of the items are proportionate to size of the item- it costs 4 flowers for a floor or a wall, and also 4 flowers for a single vase on a table. Another reviewer said they are stuck on level 145 and that the game is designed to take money. I am currently on level 703. I have purchased coins once- but as I got more skilled at seeing the pathways to matching all the tiles, I have been able to see when using coins to continue the game is cost effective, and when I’ve simply screwed it up beyond repair and need to start over. I have wasted some coins on refilling lives, but if I run out, I use that as a sign that I’ve been in my phone for long enough, and it’s time for a break from screen time. Overall I love this game and will continue to play 😀

I enjoy it, but it seems the higher I go, the more impossible the levels are. I’m on level 549 and I have been trying to beat it for days. It doesn’t help that each time I try again, the tiles have completely randomized so I can’t even use a strategy to try and win it but instead it’s chance all over again. I also wish there was a “watch an ad” feature to earn a life. 25 minutes for one life is insane. I do wish to play endlessly and get my zen on but I can’t do that when it takes 5 lives to one level. I also earned all of the rooms and stopped earning blue things which is fine but if the game updates and has more levels, I could have earned A LOT of blue things if I would have just waited for the update. If it wasn’t for that I am still unlocking backgrounds, I’d have deleted it. I also wish I could use my coins on other things like lives. And if not, to at least earn coins more quickly… or to earn more coins per level but keep the helpers the same price. They’re costly, and for no reason. Having a “watch an ad” feature for these would also be great, especially for the helper that costs 60 coins. Overall, it’s a good game, but the cons have me wanting to delete it more every day.

I really liked this game when I started it and even paid to remove the ads. There are several things about it that have driven me away. First of all, you can’t purchase coins at a reasonable price. When I first started there were reasonably priced packages available. Now, the cheapest I can purchase is $7.99. I find it strange that price of the packages go up as you progress in the game. Another thing I really dislike about it is that there’s a short game before each level that, as far as I can tell, is pointless. Also, there are no daily prizes or any incentives really to keep you coming back. There is a daily game, but it’s almost impossible to win. I feel like this game is designed to hook you at first and get you to spend a bit of money, then move on. Some have also mentioned the lives - it takes 30 minutes to regenerate one life! To continue without losing a life, it takes 60 coins. To put this in perspective, the cheapest package is around 360 coins for $7.99. That’s just too much money! Too bad, because if it were reasonably priced, I’d keep playing. I really liked it, but I can’t blow that much money on a game.

I like the game but a few bugs and quite a bit of advertisements. So one bug that I noticed that when you go to do the daily puzzles I was wondering why I had such little time or what felt like I would have more time to complete the same daily puzzle but it seems as though when you have to watch an ad to play the daily puzzle it has the timer for the level going in the background while the ad is playing making it near impossible to complete some of the rounds if you only have a minute to finish it without an ad and with lives taking what feels like forever to fill up and only able to bank 5 at a time it’s discouraging. Another thing that’s a bit frustrating is when you can complete a level at the skin of your teeth like the last tiles popped and there is still one second left and it still says you failed the round. I think a time adjustment would be nice as well as fixing the ad taking up the time on the daily puzzles is a huge priority. Overall it’s a nice game that’s challenging in the higher levels.

I think I progressed too far in the game. I was doing the puzzles for the sake of the puzzles and got to the point where there was no more “coloring scenes” to change. I still had plenty of blue flowers (though, I stopped earning those per level too) for when future scenes came out so I kept going just focused on the matching gameplay. I kept running out of coins which the game kept offering me in exchange for actual money (which I did once). I needed the coins because the levels were more challenging at this point. I waited until I passed the level by sheer luck and watched the ad to triple my sparse 10 coins earned to 30. The button wouldn’t always work but I figured it was my phone being weird. Except now the button is gone. If I can’t get coins efficiently without regularly spending money, I’m not going to continue playing. I just beat the game and now I’m done. 🤷🏾‍♀️

It gets two stars for the actual gameplay. It was challenging at times but not terrible until I passed the “expected threshold”. I do think if coins are spent for at most 60 for the most expensive assist, the award should be 20 or the multiplyer should be 6. Some of the harder puzzles use at least 2 of these.

Ok I’m totally rewriting my review. After reading some other very negative reviews let me clear some things up.

1) the game was actually what the ad was for. Ok maybe lev 51 wasn’t a full board (as someone else noticed) but it’s the same sort of game play. That’s a big plus since most ads are totally fake! Not worth giving it a negative review.

2) yes there is a timer but only for the daily CHALLENGE!.. C’mon guys it’s meant to be a challenge! Normal games are not timed.

3) ok if you get stuck and decide not to use undo, and your tile tray gets full then yeah.. you lose a heart. So plan your moves. Take your time. It’s really not hard.

4) yeah the ads did pick up significantly but it’s a great game very relaxing and tons of fun. Backgrounds to get and tiles to collect and rooms to decorate. I still have not run into any bugs. Great game and I totally recommend!

EDIT: I’ve been stuck at level 35 for days. Used all my hearts a few times now. And can’t get coins so when I’m stuck I’m stuck. Tried playing the daily ones and those don’t work now for some reason. Tap tap tap and nothing. So the best I can hope for is to magically pass 35 :/ hope the bugs get worked out. Could be from recent update. Nice job 🙄

The actual game-play is so-so. They don’t explain at all how to play, but you get the gist through trial and error. I’m only on level 15, and have run across a couple of glitches already (like, you can’t change the backgrounds even after “earning” them). And there are ads after every level. Eew! I’d gladly pay a small fee to eliminate the ads, but there’s no menu/option to do that…. Which leads to my BIGGEST complaint: there’s NO place in ZenMatch to get ANY help or to contact the developer. I found their website through ZenMatch Store, but this game isn’t even listed there; and there’s still no way to contact them. Same results with their FB page. Not thinking I’ll keep playing, and I certainly won’t pay money if there’s nobody around to help.

I am enjoying the game, but the second background you get is the “rainforest”…………… I think...... no matter what it is called..... it has quick lightening flashes which triggered my migraines because I did not know they were there until after it was on the screen. You should take out the flashes or put a disclaimer that the flashes are there. I was unsure of how to change the background, because I had just started playing the game, so I quickly rushed through until I got the next background.

Fun if it works, but glitches all too common. Example: Countdown clock for next life hit 0 while I watched it, I pushed "restart" and lost the life without getting to play. Want to play the daily timed levels? Go ahead, and pray you don't have to sit thru an obnoxious advertisement only to be returned to the homepage, unable to launch the level because of glitches. 30 minutes between lives is ridiculous, especially when the games glitches and basically steals your lives, or does not actually give you the bonus coins you sat thru an ad to get. No obvious way to contact game developer about concerns. Booooooo!

This game is awesome and relaxing and most of these complaints are kind of petty, but my one complaint is that when I complete the gift boxes I don’t really get new stuff like it says. I got the new themes but then after I completed all of them I just win the same ones over again. I have only won one new tile, and since then I have been winning the same tiles I have already had. Maybe there should be more new ones because that’s what’s exciting about the gift boxes.

I was prepared to have ads every three seconds, but it's the complete opposite! There's no ads (so far) except for the ones that are at the bottom of the screen. This game is enjoyable, easy but not too easy. Love it, keep up the good work!

Just started playing this game a few weeks ago. I enjoy playing the daily challenge because the puzzles are a bit more intricate. I didn’t finish 07/31 on that day, I thought I’d try again on 08/01 but it seems to be locked. I can push the play button all day and I can’t access it. I think I’d enjoy the game more if it had more of a challenge rather than the daily you can only play on the current day.

I really enjoy this game, but there’s a bug that’s driving me crazy. Multiple times now, I’ll get a puzzle almost finished and then I get the “out of space” message even though I’m clearly not. The last time I actually didn’t have a single tile in play. Can this be fixed please?

⚠️ PLEASE READ! NOT LONG ⚠️

This will not be long but I dislike the second background with the rain. I understand it’s the RAINforest but maybe not the rain. In my opinion it’s kinda distracting and a little annoying but other then that, it’s super addicting! I love it!

I honestly downloaded this game because I saw an ad for level 51 being the whole page, but it’s not. I know I shouldn’t of fallen for it but whatever. Games pretty decent, limited ads which is dope. Add a full screen level!

I just downloaded this game and I’m already in love with it. I expected a tacky mobile game with ads every few seconds, it’s anything but that!
The puzzles are so much fun and the rooms you can color is such a fun addition!

Great concept and fun to play for a level. Then the 45 seconds of ads, then 1 level and another 45 seconds of ads. If I wanted to watch ads for an hour I would turn on the tv.

Either make a paid for app and get rid of the ads or reduce them to 15 seconds every few rounds like most free games. Unfortunately I will have to delete ZenMatch and play ones that are not so annoying.

So, I tried app support found nothing on the website for that so I am trying this.
1. When I buy coins, that pack disappears and doesn’t come back no matter how many times I come back to the game.
2. I tried using the 3x coins for watching a video a couple times - it didn’t work.
3. There’s no in app communication which is why I am here…which is really annoying.
4. I can’t see how many coins I have when I am playing the game to know if I can use any of the *help* buttons.

I really hope the bugs get fixed because I am loving this game otherwise!

Thanks!

I love this game! It’s super relaxing and addicting. It’s really fun and I could probably play for hours, I love it so much, it’s so fun! I recommend it :)<3

I love the matching parts and the home design
But some the colors that I have to choose from are positively revolting and I would not even use them in my own house and nor would my Dad or brother . Please offer more color choices