So far I've found the beta very challenging to "pilot." It's tough to avoid accidental pairs/fifteens/etc. that conflict with larger scoring setups. In the release version, I would normally try to organize things by value left-to-right, and by suit in layers top-to-bottom, but in the beta this runs the risk of combining vertical Pairs (or sometimes vertical Fifteen, or even Thirty-One due to how many 10/J/Q/K are nearby and the risk of an A or anything that adds to 11 clearing out the column). It's a lot harder to keep things separated in a way that will keep them from clearing away tiles you needed for something else.

I think one aspect the beta highlights is the lack of a Next tile display. In the release version, there's ways to plan ahead possible scoring setups without needing to necessarily know the next tile in the deck. In the beta version, it's a lot easier to run into conflicts, but they might be avoidable if the player could plan one more step ahead.

It has been interesting playing around with new ways to set up chains of alternating horizontal/vertical scoring patterns. However, I haven't had a lot of luck getting them to work well; since it's still limited to just straight-line clears, the setups are still pretty bulky.

I wonder if the game would feel easier/harder to control if certain things were made even more flexible. For example, adding right-to-left etc. detection for Runs might make it easier to organize things to avoid accidental Pairs, but it also might make it harder to avoid accidental vertical Runs too. Similarly, adding L-shaped detection for scoring patterns might make it easier to use more compact forms for setting up chains, but it also might make it easier to run into new types of conflicts. Just as with the current beta, I think any of these hypothetical changes would need some playtesting to see if you like how they affect the game.

There are certainly also benefits to the new vertical detection as well. In the release version, it was possible to fill up a row with non-scoring patterns and therefore lose that space completely, whereas the beta detection does give other ways to clean things up and recover. Also, thanks to the beta version's easier clean-up, I was able to see the new Shooting Star bonus animation for the first time. :)

Thank you! I've been having a lot of fun with it. Today I had a bout of "Tetris Effect" (Gembot Effect? Cribbage Effect?) thinking about the different combinations in the back of my mind. :)

If it's alright to ask, what was added to the game?