In Match242 players slide stones around the board to match others by color or number or both. When a match is made, both stones are removed from the board and you earn points based on the numbers. If both the color and number match, the points are doubled. The goal is to clear the board to advance to the next level, and to get bonus points for clearing levels. After you have cleared about of any level, several more stones are added, two at a time, to make it more challenging. There are also cool sound effects as you drag stones, make matches, and stones tiles are added.

The game starts with a 3x4 grid, then moves up to 4x5, 5x6 and finally infinite levels at 6x7. The number of colors increase up to 8, and the numbers on the stones keep increasing as you level up. If you find that there are no more stones to match but you haven't cleared the board, you can use bonus points to get more stones - each bonus point is worth two new stones. The game ends if you can't clear a level and you run out of bonus points.