Drop falling stacks of three gems, line up three or more of a colour to clear them, and every clear brews a potion gem into your next piece to set off bigger plays.
Brewing Columns is a falling-gem matching puzzle with a crafting twist. A vertical stack of three gems drops down the well; you slide it left and right and cycle the three colours within it before it locks. Lines of three or more matching gems in any direction, horizontal, vertical or diagonal, clear, then gravity drops everything above for chain cascades. Each clear brews one potion gem that drops into your next piece.
A vertical stack of three gems falling down a well, cycled and steered before it locks, clearing on three or more in any direction including diagonals, is Columns — designed by Jay Geertsen and shared in 1989, later published commercially by Sega.
The original addition is crafting: each clear yields a potion that re-enters play.
Columns is essentially a scoring treadmill — cascades are the only reward and the board never changes character. Turning clears into objects that come back gives the game a direction, so a clear is an investment rather than just points.
Brewing Columns reimagines the falling-column gem matcher by turning each clear into a craftable potion that re-enters play. It is an original free browser game built in-house for PlayPendium.