Tide & Stone: Block Puzzle

Chain clears back to back and the combo multiplier takes over. Twenty chapters to work through, a daily board everyone plays, and a weekly leaderboard to climb.

Tide & Stone is a block puzzle that rewards the setup. Anyone can clear one line. The game is built around the drop that takes out two at once and leaves the board ready for the next one.

Eight-by-eight grid, three stones in the tray at a time, and no clock anywhere in it.

How the scoring works

Two lines in a single drop pay more than the same two cleared one after the other. Every placement that clears something keeps your combo alive and raises what the next one is worth. Badges wait at combo eight and combo sixteen for players who go hunting for them.

Getting good at it

The combo resets on any placement that clears nothing, so the tempting quick single is worth a second look when a second line is one piece away. When the tray is down to three legal placements the game says so, and re-rolling the whole tray usually beats forcing a piece in and hoping. On Daily your limit is thirty pieces rather than a clock, so a placement that clears nothing costs you more there than anywhere else.

Three ways to play

Path runs twenty chapters and two hundred boards, each with a score to reach. Miss the target and you lose the attempt and nothing else. Clear it and the stones along the route stay lit behind you.

Daily is one board, thirty pieces, one attempt, and the same board for everyone playing that date. Spend the thirty and the run is scored whether you finished it or not. Your last seven days stay in the archive, and a day you missed reads as a gap in the record.

Endless hands you an empty board and lets it run until it locks up. Leave mid-run and it waits exactly as you left it. Its Game Center board resets weekly.

When the board gets tight

A chip appears once the tray is down to three legal placements and tells you how many are left, so a run never ends on a move you did not know was your last. If it jams anyway, you are offered whatever you still hold: a swap to re-roll the tray, an undo to step back, a swap bought with sand you earn by playing, or one more swap for an ad. The run ends only when there is nothing left to pull.

What you keep

Sand is earned by playing and spent on boosters (undo, swap and hint), streak freezes and themes. Tidewater, Dusk, Frost and Ember each recolor the entire app rather than one accent. Twenty-two badges mark the runs worth keeping.

Set the difficulty to Easy, Standard or Hard and it changes the score you need, the boosters you start with, and how often the tray hands you a piece that fits. Switch whenever you like without losing progress.

The home screen draws a field of tide contours from today's date, so tomorrow opens on a different shape. Once a board starts, that artwork drops away and the grid has the screen to itself.

What it costs

Tide & Stone is free to play. Ads run in the break between boards, and a banner sits along the bottom of Home, the Shop, Settings and the Leaderboard. The board itself stays clear of both, and a one-time purchase removes the ads between boards and the banner. Sand can be bought if you would rather not earn it, and an ad is always optional: for sand in the shop, to double a first clear, to refill a booster, to hold a streak, or for that extra swap on a jammed board. The sand route to each stays open, and nothing is time-gated behind a purchase.

Plays offline, needs no account. Game Center leaderboards for Daily and Endless read in full or narrowed to your friends, and any finished run can be shared as a card.

Built to be read your way

Turn on Differentiate Without Color and every piece carries a shape as well as a color, so color is never the only signal. Reduce Motion stills the tide and swaps the springs for crossfades. The whole game is drawn for a dark interface, and every piece can be placed with a tap instead of a drag.

Made by a small family-owned studio in Chicago.