About Block Drop
Block Drop is our take on the classic falling-block puzzle. Pieces fall one at a time into a well, you slide and rotate them on the way down, and any row you fill from wall to wall disappears. Let the stack reach the top and the game is over.
We made a few deliberate changes from the version most people remember, and they change how the game plays:
- The well is 9 columns wide and 16 rows tall. One column narrower than usual means rows fill faster, but it also means an awkward piece has fewer places to go. On a phone the narrower well also gives you bigger, easier-to-read blocks.
- There are 12 shapes, not 7. Alongside the familiar four-cell pieces (the straight bar, the square, the T, the two zigzags and the two hooks) you will see a single dot, a two-cell domino, a three-cell bar, a small three-cell corner and a five-cell cup shaped like a U.
- Colors mean nothing. Each piece gets a random color, and never the same color twice in a row. We did this on purpose: you learn to read the shape, not the paint.
- A fair bag. Pieces are dealt from a shuffled bag of 28 that contains every shape at least once. The four-cell pieces appear three times per bag, the three-cell bar and the corner twice, and the dot, the domino and the cup once each. You will never go a whole bag without seeing the straight bar.
There is one preview window (Next), a ghost outline showing where the current piece will land, and your best score is kept in your browser.
How to play
Press Play. A piece appears at the top of the well and starts falling one row at a time. Move it left and right, rotate it, and drop it into place. When a piece can’t fall any further it locks, and the next one appears.
Fill every cell of a row and the row clears; everything above it moves down. Clearing several rows with a single piece scores much more than clearing them one by one.
The game ends when a new piece has no room to appear, or when a piece locks with any part of it still above the rim.
Scoring
| Rows cleared with one piece | Points (times current level) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 100 |
| 2 | 300 |
| 3 | 500 |
| 4 | 800 |
On top of that, a soft drop gives 1 point for every row you push the piece down, and a hard drop gives 2 points for every row it falls. A four-row clear on level 3 is worth 2,400 points, so the bonus for clearing several rows at once really adds up.
Levels and speed
You start on level 1, where a piece falls one row every 0.82 seconds. Every 8 cleared rows you go up a level and each fall gets 70 milliseconds quicker. By level 11 a piece drops a row about every eighth of a second, and from level 12 on the speed stays at its maximum of one row every 0.09 seconds. The small bar under the side panel’s level number shows how close you are to the next level.
Rotation
Rotation turns the piece a quarter turn. If the turned piece would hit a wall or another block, the game tries nudging it one cell left, one cell right, two cells either way, and finally one row up. That means you can usually rotate a piece that is pressed flat against a wall without moving it out first.
Strategy tips
These are the habits that made the biggest difference when we playtested.
1. Keep the surface flat
A flat stack accepts almost any piece. A jagged one only accepts the one piece that happens to match its shape. After each drop, glance at the top edge of your stack: if it has a spike or a deep pit, your next few pieces should be spent evening it out, not scoring.
2. Leave one column open, but only one
Stack eight columns and leave a single column clear, usually against a wall. When the straight bar arrives, drop it into the gap and clear up to four rows at once for the 800-point bonus. Two open columns just means two places that need filling.
3. Use the small pieces as filler
The dot, the domino and the three-cell pieces are the big advantage of our 12-shape set. They fit into one-cell holes and ledges that the four-cell pieces can’t. Don’t spend a dot in the middle of a flat area: save it for the one awkward hole.
4. Treat the cup with respect
The five-cell cup is the hardest piece in the bag. Upside down (opening facing down) it creates a covered hole unless there is a single raised cell for it to sit over. The cleanest places for it are a one-cell bump on a flat surface, or opening-up on a flat stretch three cells wide, where the next piece can fill the middle.
5. Read the Next window every time
Before placing the current piece, look at the next one and ask where it will go. If the next piece is the straight bar, keep your well column clean. If it is the square, make sure you have a flat area two cells wide.
6. Don’t chase four-row clears when you’re high
Once the stack passes the middle of the well, clear rows one or two at a time until you’re back down.
FAQ
Is there a hold slot?
No. You get one Next preview and the ghost piece, so every decision is about the piece in front of you and the one after it.
Why don’t the shapes have fixed colors?
Because the shape is what matters. Random colors keep you reading outlines, and they make every game look a little different.
Where is my best score saved?
In your browser’s local storage on this device. Clearing your site data resets it, and it doesn’t carry over to other browsers or devices.
Does the game pause if I switch tabs?
Yes. If the page goes into the background the game pauses automatically, and you can resume from the pause screen. You can also pause any time with P, Escape or the pause button.
Can I turn the sound off?
Yes, with the speaker button in the top corner. The game remembers your choice.
