Mello scoring and combos explained

Two ways to earn points

Every successful placement awards one point for each cell of the piece. A three-cell corner is worth three placement points before any clear. A five-cell line piece is worth five. Placement points always apply, even when the move does not clear a line.

Line clears award a separate bonus on top of placement points. The clear bonus is the part that grows quickly when you clear several lines at once or string clears across consecutive moves.

Line-clear formula

When a move clears one or more full rows and/or columns, Mello counts the total number of lines cleared on that move as lineCount. Your combo counter then becomes previousCombo + 1 if at least one line cleared, or resets to 0 if the move cleared nothing.

The clear bonus uses a base of 10 points and scales with both how many lines you cleared and your current combo after the move: 10 × lineCount × lineCount × combo. In plain language, multi-line moves are worth much more than single lines, and a live combo multiplies the result again.

• Placement points: 1 × number of cells in the piece.
• Clear base: 10.
• Clear bonus: 10 × (lines cleared)² × (combo after the move).
• No clear on a move: combo returns to 0; only placement points apply.

These constants match Mello’s published SCORE_RULES in the game engine: pointsPerPlacedCell = 1 and lineClearBase = 10.

Examples that build intuition

Example A — first clear of a run: you place a piece that completes exactly one row, and your combo was 0. After the clear, combo becomes 1. Clear bonus = 10 × 1 × 1 × 1 = 10, plus placement points for the piece’s cells.

Example B — double clear with combo 2 becoming 3: you complete one row and one column in one placement (lineCount = 2). Clear bonus = 10 × 2 × 2 × 3 = 120, plus placement points. That single multi-line move outweighs many quiet placements.

Example C — break the chain: you place a piece that fills space but clears nothing. Combo resets to 0. You still earn placement points, but the next clear starts the combo ladder over at 1.

Why multi-line clears matter

Because lineCount is squared, two lines on one move are four times the single-line factor before combo is applied, not merely twice. Three lines jump even harder. Planning setups that finish multiple rows or mix a row and a column in one drop is the highest-leverage skill after basic survival.

Combos reward consistency: clear something every few moves rather than packing the board for one giant clear if that packing leaves you unable to place the next tray. A moderate multi-clear that keeps the board open often scores more over a full run than a risky stack that ends the game early.

Stats you will see after a run

Score is the sum of all placement points and clear bonuses for the run. Lines (or total lines cleared) counts how many row and column clears occurred across the whole game — a move that clears two lines adds two. Best combo (or max combo) records the highest combo counter you reached after any single clearing move.

None of these stats are adjusted by advertising. Website ads and optional app pauses never rewrite score, combo, or line totals after the fact.

Practical scoring habits

Early in a run, favor keeping two or three nearly complete lines “armed” rather than spreading blocks randomly. Mid-run, prefer pieces that both reduce awkward gaps and finish a clear so the combo does not die. Late-run, when the board is tight, a humble single-line clear that reopens space can be worth more than gambling on a perfect multi-clear you cannot finish.

Daily mode has a fixed piece budget, so every clear you skip is opportunity cost against a known sequence. Endless mode rewards survival plus efficient scoring; dying with a high theoretical setup still scores zero more points after game over.