Online Block Puzzle Game

Ten empty squares scattered across a board will not necessarily hold a five-square bar. The bar needs five empty cells in a straight line, not just enough empty area. In a block-placement puzzle, joined squares are fitted onto a grid, and complete rows or columns clear to make space for later pieces.

On a stationary board, the blocks left after a clear do not slide or fall together. A vertical clear leaves a column-shaped opening, while a horizontal clear may provide room for a long bar. Clearing a line can therefore change which shapes will fit next, as well as adding points.

Several available pieces create choices about order. A small corner might finish a line and open space for a larger square. A long bar with only one landing place can instead become stranded when another piece fills part of that gap. The piece that fits now is not always the most useful one to place first.

Chasing an extra line or a consecutive-clear bonus can mean postponing a clear and leaving the board crowded. An untimed puzzle gives time to compare that tradeoff before committing a piece. Good planning preserves options, but it cannot guarantee that every later shape will fit. A run can end while empty squares remain.

How to Use This Tool:

Tapping the board moves a preview rather than placing a piece. Choose the setup before starting, then check each placement before committing it.

1. Choose Board size and Rotation. The defaults are an 8 × 8 board and Fixed pieces. Allow quarter turns lets you rotate during play. Keep Placement + clear preview to see prospective clears, or choose Placement only to check fit without that extra guidance. Assists do not change scoring or the piece sequence.
2. Enter a Run seed or keep block-garden, then choose Start game. Use 1 to 96 characters after surrounding spaces are removed. If starting is disabled, replace a blank or spaces-only seed with nonblank text.
3. Select an unused piece, then tap or click the board to move its preview. The + marks the upper-left corner of the rectangle enclosing the shape, which is not always a filled square. For Does not fit, move the anchor, choose another piece, or use Rotate ↻ when allowed.
4. Choose Place piece when the whole piece fits. Check the score and clearing feedback before placing another piece. The next unused piece becomes selected; a fresh set arrives after all three have been placed.

With the play area focused, use 1 to 3 to choose a piece, separate arrow-key presses to move the anchor, and Enter or Space to place. R rotates when allowed, and P pauses. Screen-reader piece descriptions give the footprint dimensions and filled columns for each row.

Pause holds the current run, and switching away from the window pauses it automatically. Use Resume to continue, Restart to reset the board and score with the same seed and setup, or End run to see the summary. There is no single-move undo.

Interpreting Results:

Fits confirms the chosen placement, not that the remaining pieces or next set can be placed. Check the spaces needed by the other unused pieces before committing, even when the preview shows a line clear.

Score combines points for placed squares with line-clear bonuses. Lines counts completed rows and columns across the run. Combo is the current streak of placements that clear at least one line, not the number of lines cleared by the last piece.

Best compares runs with the same board size, rotation and assist settings, across different seeds. It is not a record for the current seed alone. For a like-for-like replay, keep the seed and all three setup choices unchanged.

The final summary reports Score, Lines cleared and Pieces placed. Replay same seed starts over with the same piece sequence. New seed changes the seed without changing the setup. A different opening set is not guaranteed. Change setup returns to the starting options. Scores are for play and have no monetary value.

Technical Details:

A placement adds a whole shape to the board before checking every row and column for completion. Line counting happens before any squares disappear, so a crossing row and column can both contribute to the same move.

Rule Core

The 12 base shapes include a single square, straight bars of two to five squares, corners, a T, a zigzag, and solid 2 × 2 and 3 × 3 squares. Shapes may repeat within a set. Both the shapes and their starting orientations come from the seeded sequence, so fixed pieces can arrive in different orientations. A new set is not chosen to suit the remaining gaps and can have no legal placement.

The same seed and setup reproduce the piece sequence under the same rules. Reproducing the board and score also requires repeating the placements and rotations in the same order.

Formula Core

A clearing placement extends the combo by one, even when it clears several lines. A placement with no clear resets it to zero. Let L be the number of completed rows plus columns, C the combo after the move, and C_previous the combo before it.

The points gained add one point per placed square to the line bonus. Here, B is the piece's square count and G is the increase in Score.

The combo multiplies only the line bonus, not the points for the placed squares. Those squares earn their points even when they disappear immediately in a clear. Scores use whole numbers without rounding or a time bonus. Moving the anchor, selecting or rotating a piece, and unsuccessful placement attempts do not break a combo.

On an 8 × 8 board, one square that fills the shared gap in a row and column clears two lines. With a previous combo of zero, the new combo is 1 and the move earns 21 points. The two cleared lines cover 15 distinct squares, not 16, because their intersection is shared.

Suppose two rows each lack one square and the tray contains three single-square pieces. Starting from combo zero, filling the first gap earns 11 points. Filling the second gap immediately afterward earns 21 points because the combo is now 2. A following single-square placement with no clear earns 1 point and resets the combo to zero.

End-of-run conditions

The no-fit check happens after clearing and, when necessary, dealing the next set. It considers every unused piece at every board position, including all quarter turns when rotation is allowed.

FAQ:

References:

• Block Puzzle: how to play and strategy, TapTogon.