Cards Connect offers users the opportunity to prove their skills at finding and matching identical playing cards on a field of cards that have been mixed together. Cards Connect has 12 unique levels.
After the player taps the "Play" button, they're taken to a secondary title screen where they can choose to play the game, review information about the game developers and turn off the sound. Once they tap the red play button, they're then taken to the main screen and game board.
The screen displays all available cards at the center of the board. The left and right sides of the board feature information and buttons the player can use during the game:
- The top left corner displays the game level.
- The first button, a shuffle button, reorders the cards to make it easier to create matches as the game progresses.
- A hint button featuring a lightbulb icon gives a player up to five hints about possible matches.
- A pause button allows the player to stop the game at any time, as needed.
- An undo button allows the player to undo one or more previous moves.
- Another sound button is available to turn the sound off and on. It's important to note that the sound automatically turns back on if off whenever the player clicks any button on the screen.
The game reveals automatically the first matching pair of cards. It makes them turn side-to-side and zoom in and out on the board. To select a card, a player taps it. A red line then appear around the card. Once the player selects two matching cards, a red line appears to connect the two and the cards then disappear from the screen with little cloud graphics that are like puffs of smoke. As matched cards disappear, the rest of the cards slide/drop down toward the bottom of the screen in rows. If two cards aren't a match, they shake back and forth slightly in the air before returning to the board.
Cards Connect doesn't permit diagonal matches. No more than three lines can stretch between the cards in any direction. Players can select cards along the border and across gaps in each row as the cards drop. They can also select side-by-side matching cards no matter the positioning of the cards on the board along the border and inside of the game play field.
