Bloom

Numbers that eat numbers.

BLOOM is a merge puzzle built on one decision: where the next tile goes.

Drop it onto an empty cell and it eats every neighbour that matches it. Two eats two and becomes four. That four eats the four beside it and becomes eight. The eight keeps going. One tap can light a chain seven deep, and the board you shaped three turns ago is what decides whether it does.

HOW THE PUZZLE WORKS

• Tap an empty cell to aim. Before you commit, the preview rings every tile your placement would eat and badges how deep the merge chain runs.
• Tap again to place it.
• Three inert tiles sprout after every turn, so space is always closing in.
• The run ends when the board fills.

No clock to beat. No lives to lose. No energy to wait for. The only pressure is the board.

A BRAIN PUZZLE, NOT A LUCKY ONE

Chains are not luck. They come from leaving the right gaps in the right places, several turns before you need them, which is a different question from "where can I put this".

Play carelessly and the board fills quickly. Play well and it keeps going, and the numbers climb: 256, 512, 1024, 2048.

The whole game is one screen and two taps. What it asks of you is board shape.

PLAY IT ANYWHERE, OFFLINE

No wifi, no signal, no waiting. The whole game runs on your phone, in portrait, one-handed, so it works on a commute, in a queue or in bed.

SOMETHING TO CHASE

• 17 achievements, from your first cascade to a chain ten deep, a 2048 tile and a quarter of a million points in one run.
• A global high score leaderboard. One board, one number, everybody on it.
• Lifetime totals that keep counting across every run: games played, tiles placed, tiles eaten, promotions and points scored.
• Sign in with Google Play Games and your progress follows you to your next phone.

112 WAYS TO LOOK AT IT

• 14 themes. Near-black ink, warm paper, phosphor-green terminal, saturated arcade, and ten more. Each one retints the whole game, not just the tiles.
• 8 tile styles, from flat through bevelled to pixel, wire, brushed, coin, chisel and diagonal.
• That is 112 combinations, and you can change either one at any time, mid-run, with the board updating under your hand.

Every tile carries its number as well as its colour, so the board reads by shape and digit rather than by hue alone.

If you like number puzzles and merge games that reward planning over speed, BLOOM is one board, one tap, and a long climb.