Fair pieces

Not released yet. Honest Blocks is still being built. This page describes the rules the game is being built to keep.

How pieces are chosen

• Every piece shape has a published chance of appearing. The chances follow a published schedule: gentler for the first sets of blocks of every game, tougher later. A set of blocks is the three pieces you get at a time. The schedule depends only on how many sets of blocks you have been given, and it is the same for every player.
• Each time you get new blocks, the game draws three pieces at random using the chances for that point in the schedule and nothing else.
• The part of the game that picks pieces is given only the random number generator, the published schedule and the number of sets of blocks given so far. It is never given the board or your score. An automatic test fails the build if anyone ever changes that.
• So the game cannot hand you a piece because it fits, or because it doesn't.

The piece list and the odds

The pieces are: a single square, dominoes, straight lines of 3, 4 and 5, a 2 by 2 square, a 3 by 3 square, 2 by 3 rectangles, small and large L shapes in every direction, T shapes, and S and Z shapes. Pieces cannot be turned, so each direction is its own piece. The one exception is the Rotate booster, in Adventure only.

Inside the game, the Fair Pieces screen shows every shape with its exact odds. That screen reads the very same file the game draws from, so the two cannot disagree.

Not printed here yet. The odds are still being play-tested before launch, so this page does not list numbers that might change.

Seeds: same seed, same pieces

Every game starts from a number called a seed. The same seed gives the same pieces in the same order on every phone.

• Classic: a new seed every game.
• Daily Puzzle: one seed for the date. Everyone playing on the same date gets the same pieces. The day follows the date on your phone, and the pieces come from the date itself, so the puzzle works offline.
• Challenge a friend: the link carries your game's seed, so your friend gets exactly the pieces you had.

One honest consequence: because the Daily Puzzle's pieces come from the date, they are not a secret. Someone determined could work them out ahead of time and practise. We would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.

You can check this yourself. After a game, open Check this game in the app for the game's code. Check a game deals the same pieces again in your own browser.

Undo is not a reroll

Taking back a move also winds the random generator back. After an undo you get the same pieces you would have had, so an undo can never be used to fish for better ones.

Fair leaderboards

• When a score is sent, the game sends the seed and every move. The server plays the game again with the same rules and works out the score itself. If the two do not match, the score is refused.
• A game that used an undo never goes on a leaderboard, whether or not the player paid.
• Nothing a player can buy affects a leaderboard score.
• In the Daily Puzzle, only your first finished game of the day counts.

Adventure levels

Adventure is a map of levels in chapters of 10. Each level has one goal, one starting board and one set of pieces. It sits beside Classic and the Daily Puzzle and changes neither.

• Every level has one fixed set of pieces. Everyone gets the same ones, on every try. Losing never changes them.
• The game never looks at your board to choose pieces. That is true in Adventure too. The part that picks pieces is still given only the random number generator, the published schedule and the number of sets of blocks given.
• We checked every level before it shipped. Each one can be won with no boosters.
• How hard a level is depends only on its number. It is the same for every player.
• Prizes are fixed and shown before you play. Nothing is left to chance.
• Boosters never change which pieces you get.
• There are no lives and nothing that runs out. Only level 9 of each chapter has a clock, and you can turn it off. Try again as often as you like, at once and for free.

What a level is

A level is a short published record: its number, its seed, its goal, and where its starting blocks and gems sit. The seed is worked out from the level number, so anyone can check it. There are three goals:

• Collect the gems. Gems sit inside some starting blocks. Clear a gem's square in a line and it is collected.
• Clear the stone blocks. Clear every starting block.
• Reach a score. The scoring is the classic scoring, unchanged.

What sets how hard a level is

Only the level's number. Never how you are doing, how often you lost, or whether you paid.

The first chapter is the gentlest. Later chapters start with a few more blocks, and from chapter 3 the pieces come from one step further along the same published odds schedule. From chapter 10 on, the difficulty stays level. Hard levels count sets of blocks. The only clock in Adventure is the one on level 9 of each chapter: see Level timers.

These are the exact numbers. They depend only on the chapter, and they are the same for every player. Level 5 gives you at most 12 sets of blocks and level 9 at most 10, in every chapter. Every level 10 starts with 8 stone blocks and 3 gems and has no such limit.

In this table "blocks" are the stone blocks on the board when the level starts. "Sets of blocks" is the most sets of three pieces the level gives you, the first one included. The 300 levels that ship never change.

Level timers

Only level 9 of each chapter has a clock. It starts on your first move and stops when you pause. It stops too when a sheet is open, when the game is in the background and when the screen is locked. You can turn it off in Settings, and that changes nothing about prizes or coins.

Each time is set from the level's checked solution: about double the time a careful casual player needs, rounded up to 15 seconds. It is the same for every player. At zero the try is lost. Try again is free and no ad follows. The game's Fair Pieces screen lists all 30 times, read from the same file the game uses.

How levels are checked

Before a level ships, a solver program on our own computer has to win it using no boosters. The solver is allowed to look at the board, because it is a checking tool and not part of the game. If it cannot win a level, that level is thrown away and never ships. Nobody edits a level by hand. After the last checked level the map says "More levels are coming."

Prizes

Prizes are printed on the map before you play. They are the same for every player, and there is no chance in them. Levels 3, 5 and 7 of every chapter each hold a silver box with one booster. Level 10 holds the golden block.

So a chapter gives 5 boosters and one picture. The picture is a photograph (space, wild nature, animals up close or under the sea), the same for every player, and it is yours to keep.

Your first win of each level also pays 50 coins. It is the same 50 for every level and every player, whatever your score and however many tries it took. The boxes and the golden block hold no coins of their own. Playing a level again after you have won it gives no prize and no coins.

Picture cards

Each chapter's picture comes as four cards. How you win decides which you get, never luck. The rules are the same for every player:

• Common (bronze frame): win all 10 levels of the chapter.
• Rare (silver frame): win all 10 levels without the free Hammer.
• Epic (gold frame with a shine): win all 10 levels without using a booster.
• Legendary (rainbow foil): win all 10 levels with no booster, and no Try again or Start over since you opened the level.

Each level keeps its best win, on your phone. Playing a level again can make it better, never worse, so you can earn a better card by playing a chapter's levels again. A level you won before cards came counts as Common. Cards are never sold, never given for an ad and never timed, and they change nothing about pieces, scores or leaderboards.

Boosters

• Hammer: removes one square from the board.
• Rotate: turns one piece a quarter turn. This is the only way a piece can turn, and it works in Adventure only.
• New blocks: swaps your three blocks for the level's next three, the same next three every player would get.

• Boosters come only from the prizes above. They are never sold, never given for watching an ad, and never bought with coins.
• You can hold 3 of each. A prize that does not fit waits for you and arrives when there is room, so nothing is lost.
• A booster you used is not given back if you lose.
• Boosters do nothing in Classic or the Daily Puzzle, and they can never touch a leaderboard score.
• After three lost tries on a level, the game openly offers one free Hammer for that level, with "Yes please" and "No thanks" buttons of the same size. It is the same offer for every player.

Coins and worlds

Coins come from three places, and there is no fourth. The first is the same published rule as everywhere else: each new piece has a 1 in 5 chance of carrying a coin, and you collect it by clearing a line through it. The second is the 50 coins for your first win of each Adventure level. The third is the 75 coins of the daily chest. A level you have already won gives no first-win coins again. Coins are never sold and never given for watching an ad, and they never change a score or a leaderboard. The worlds on the map (Meadow, Ocean and the rest) change how the map looks and nothing else. They are never sold and never timed.

Daily goals

Everyone gets the same three goals on the same date. They come from three published lists, by a rule that reads only the date. Finishing all three fills the daily chest: 75 coins, once a date, the same for every player. It is never bought and never comes from an ad. Missing a day loses nothing.

Day number d counts from 1 January 2026. List A: goal d mod 8. List B: goal (4d + 1) mod 9. List C: goal (3d + 2) mod 7. Each list counts from 0.

List A:

0. Clear 20 lines in Classic.
1. Score 15,000 in one Classic game.
2. Clear 2 lines with one piece in Classic, 2 times.
3. Clear lines with 3 pieces in a row in Classic.
4. Finish 1 Classic game.
5. Place 50 pieces in Classic.
6. Clear 3 coin squares in Classic.
7. Clear 30 lines in one Classic game.

List B:

0. Clear 40 lines.
1. Place 100 pieces.
2. Clear 5 coin squares.
3. Clear 2 lines with one piece, 3 times.
4. Clear 2 lines with one piece.
5. Finish 3 games or levels.
6. Clear lines with 2 pieces in a row, 5 times.
7. Clear 60 lines.
8. Score 20,000 in one game.

List C:

0. Finish a Daily Puzzle game.
1. Win an Adventure level.
2. Score 10,000 in a Daily Puzzle game.
3. Win 2 Adventure levels.
4. Clear 20 lines in Adventure.
5. Clear 25 lines in the Daily Puzzle.
6. Collect 5 gems in Adventure.

Daily stars

Your best Daily Puzzle game of the day earns stars, practice games too. The scores are fixed, the same every day for everyone:

• 1 star at 10,000 points.
• 2 stars at 40,000 points.
• 3 stars at 100,000 points.

They were chosen once, by playing the real Daily Puzzles of two years with model players: most players reach 1 star, a good game 2, a great one 3. Stars buy nothing, are kept on your phone and are never sent to us.

The classic game stays the same

After launch, the classic game's rules, pieces and odds do not change. New modes are added beside it, never on top of it. Adventure is one of those modes.

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