Dream Pet Link

How to play Dream Pet Link

Click one animal, then click an identical one. If a legal path exists between them, both clear.

• The connecting line may turn at most twice.
• The line can travel through empty space, including the space outside the edge of the board.
• It cannot pass through any tile that is still on the board.
• The timer runs for the whole level, and running out ends it.
• Clear every tile to advance.

Why the edges matter

The path is allowed to leave the board and come back. That means two tiles on the outer rows can often be joined around the outside even when the middle is solid.

Players who forget this find the late board far harder than it is, because they are only looking for routes through the interior.

The tools

A hint will show you one legal pair and a shuffle will rearrange what is left. Both are limited, and both are more valuable late than early, which is the opposite of how most people spend them.

Tips and strategy

Clear the middle before the edges

Edge tiles stay reachable almost to the end, because the route around the outside stays open as long as the outer rows are thinning.

Interior tiles are the opposite. They lock as soon as they are surrounded, so a board cleared from the outside in becomes a solid block with nothing legal left in it. Work the centre first and the edges will still be there.

Count the copies

Each animal appears several times. When you take a pair, notice how many of that animal remain and where they are.

The dangerous case is two of a kind left, sitting deep in the board on either side of a wall. That situation is created several moves before it becomes visible, and it is entirely avoidable if you watch the counts.

Look for straight lines first

A pair on the same row or column with nothing between them needs no turns at all, which makes it the safest match available and the one least likely to be blocked later.

Sweep for those before hunting for clever two turn routes. They cost nothing and they open the board.

Speed against accuracy

The clock encourages fast clicking, and fast clicking creates the locked positions described above.

A steady rhythm that keeps the centre thinning will finish a level with time to spare. Rapid clearing of whatever catches your eye will finish the level faster right up until the board deadlocks and you spend the remaining minute finding nothing.

Save the shuffle

A shuffle used at the first hesitation is wasted, because the board was still solvable and you were merely slow.

A shuffle used when the remaining tiles genuinely have no legal pair is what saves the level. Learn what a dead board looks like, a handful of tiles in tight groups with their partners on the wrong side of a wall, and hold the button until you see it.

The later levels

Difficulty here comes from density rather than new rules. More tiles on screen means more walls, and more walls means fewer legal paths for the same number of pairs.

The approach does not change, it just becomes less forgiving. Clearing the centre early stops being good practice and becomes the only way through.

The tiles you keep passing over

Visual search has a bias, and this game punishes it. Your eye goes to the middle of the board and to whichever colour is brightest, which means a pair sitting in a dull corner can stay invisible for a full minute while you scan past it repeatedly.

The fix is mechanical rather than clever. When you cannot find a move, stop scanning the board as a whole and go along it in strips, left edge to right edge, one row at a time.

It feels slow and it takes about eight seconds. In that time you will usually find two or three legal pairs that were in plain sight, and you will have avoided spending a hint on a board that was never actually stuck.

The other common blind spot is the row of tiles closest to the bottom of the screen, which sits below where your attention naturally settles. Check it first when a level starts to feel impossible.

Other connect games here

Onet Connect Classic is the same rule with a different theme, Fruit Connect 2 swaps the animals for food, and Best Classic Mahjong Connect uses real mahjong faces. More in mahjong and puzzle.