Types of Puyo

For the various skins you can make Puyo appear as, see List of Puyo skins and PPQ:Puyo Design.

This is a list of all the Puyo types that appear throughout the Puyo Puyo series.

Colored Puyos

Colored Puyos are the Puyos that you play with. Under standard rules, you connect 4 Puyos of the same color to clear them and make a chain. Matches generally use 3, 4, or 5 different colors of Puyo (Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, and Violet or Purple), with 4 being the standard for competitive matches. In the Famicom and MSX2 Puyo Puyo, it is possible to play with a total of six colors (Red, Yellow, Green, Gray, Yellow-Green, and Blue), however the sixth color would be scrapped once the series reached arcades, with five becoming the maximum.

Garbage types

Garbage Puyo

A Garbage Puyo serves no purpose except to clog up your field and mess up your chains, hence the name Garbage Puyo. Garbage Puyos can be cleared by clearing a colored Puyo that touches the Garbage Puyo (either horizontally or vertically, not diagonally).

Point Puyo

A Point Puyo is a Garbage Puyo except clearing it will produce a point bonus for the chain. This bonus is 50 points in most games. In Puyo Puyo~n, the bonus varies and ranges from 50 to 500,000 (500K). In Puyo Puyo~n, the bonus that the Point Puyo produces is indicated on the Puyo. Point Puyos are usually colored differently to distinguish them from Garbage Puyos or any of the other garbage types. In Puyo Puyo Tsu, they are perfectly spherical and blue in color, with a violet-colored core. In Puyo Puyo~n, they remain their original circular shape, but are now tinted yellow.

Hard Puyo

A Hard Puyo is a stronger version of a Garbage Puyo. Clearing a Hard Puyo will turn it into a Garbage Puyo which can then be cleared normally. In Puyo Puyo~n, there are varying strengths of Hard Puyo, which range from Hard-1 (Puyos must be cleared once before it turns into a Garbage Puyo) to Hard-9 (Puyos must be cleared 9 times before it turns into a Garbage Puyo). In Puyo Puyo~n, the strength of the Hard Puyo, when it needs to be cleared more than once, is indicated on the Puyo. Hard Puyos are also created when bombs explode in Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary. Hard Puyos are square or rectangular in order to make them distinguishable from Garbage Puyos or any of the other garbage types.

Clearing two or more normal Puyos adjacent to a Hard Puyo counts as multiple clears, and could remove it immediately skipping the Garbage Puyo state. In most games a crack sound effect is given, and the Hard Puyo's eyes seen floating up out of the field.

Garbage Chu Puyo

A Garbage Chu Puyo is a variant of Garbage Puyo that was introduced in Puyo Puyo Fever 2. Chu Puyos appear at intervals in the Endless Chu Panic mode. They function identically to regular Garbage Puyos.

Iron Puyo

An Iron Puyo is a Garbage Puyo that can't be cleared by normal means. They were introduced in Super Nazo Puyo: Rulue no Roux and can also be summoned by three super attacks in Pocket Puyo Puyo~n. In the former game, they can't be cleared by any means; in the latter, all Iron Puyos are erased by clearing six Puyos simultaneously.

Miscellaneous types

Sun Puyo

A Sun Puyo is a type of Puyo that plays a major role in Puyo Puyo Sun. Clearing a Sun Puyo increases the amount of Garbage Puyos sent to your opponent (only for garbage sent at the moment it is cleared,) but provides no point bonus to your chain. They are tied to games with the Sun rule, but the "Solar Ray" super attack in Puyo Puyo Box's "Yon" style allows the player to summon a single Sun Puyo.

Bomb Puyo

A Bomb Puyo is a special type of Puyo that only appears in the Bomb Puyo mode in Puyo Puyo~n Party for the Nintendo 64. In this mode, there is always a Bomb Puyo in one of the four playfields. Clearing any colored Puyos adjacent to a Bomb Puyo will displace it to another player's playfield. When the Bomb Puyo's timer (seen at the top of the screen) expires, it explodes, eliminating the player who last had it on their playfield.

Big Puyo

Nuisance queue icons

Main article: Nuisance queue

The following Puyo do not appear on the board; instead, they only appear on the nuisance queue to indicate a high amount of Garbage Puyo.

Standard

Small Puyo
Large Puyo
Rock Puyo
Star Puyo
Moon Puyo
Crown Puyo
Comet Puyo

Other symbols

Mushroom Puyo
Star Puyo
Crown Puyo
Comet Puyo
Saturn Puyo

Exclusive to Puyo Puyo~n

Club Puyo
Diamond Puyo
Heart Puyo
Spade Puyo
Crown Puyo
Mushroom Puyo
Top Hat Puyo
Ball Puyo
Tent Puyo
GD-ROM Puyo
Blue Swirl Puyo
Green Swirl Puyo
Yellow Swirl Puyo
Purple Swirl Puyo
Red Swirl Puyo

Non-Puyo

Block

No surprises here; it's a block. Blocks always stay in the position they are placed at and don't fall when there is space below it. They are present in the Nazo Puyo games and the Blocks ruleset, but can be summoned by three super attacks in Pocket Puyo Puyo~n; in the case of super attack #17 (Wall Bomb), they drop like Garbage Puyos and only obtain their gravity-defying properties upon being placed. They are unclearable in every game except Pocket Puyo Puyo~n, where every Block is erased when the player matches six Puyos simultaneously.

Bomb

Bombs are the central mechanic of Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary's Bomber mode. When normal Puyos are cleared, small Bombs are sent to an opposing player's Nuisance queue. When the queue fills up, they are combined to form a full-sized Bomb. For each full-sized Bomb, a Bomb is dropped onto the field as garbage (while leftover small Bombs will still remain in the queue.) When a Bomb is spawned, it begins with a count of 4, which reduces by 1 for each Puyo placed. When the count reaches 0, surrounding Puyos are converted into Hard Puyos. They can be cleared from the field by clearing any colored Puyo adjacent to them before their timers expire.