How to play Block Blast

The board and the tray

Block Blast is played on a square board of 8 rows and 8 columns, 64 squares in total. Below the board is the tray, which always holds up to three pieces. A piece is a group of square blocks joined side by side, such as a straight line, a square or an L shape.

Your goal: place the pieces, fill complete rows and columns so that they clear, and keep going as long as possible. There is no timer; the game ends only when there is no space left for the pieces in your tray.

Placing a piece

There are three ways to place a piece.

1. Drag and drop

   Press on a piece in the tray, move it over the board and release. On a touch screen it floats a little above your finger, so your finger never hides the spot you are aiming at.

2. Tap, then tap

   Tap a piece in the tray to select it, then tap a square on the board. The piece is placed with its center on that square; near the edge it moves inward so that it stays on the board. With a mouse, click instead of tapping.

3. Keyboard

   On a computer, press 1, 2 or 3 to select the first, second or third piece in the tray. Move the preview with the arrow keys and press Enter or Space to place it. Esc cancels.

While you move a piece, a shadow on the board, the preview, shows where it will land. No preview means the piece does not fit there, and if you release it, it goes back to the tray. In the example below, the see-through blocks show where a T piece will land:

Pieces cannot be rotated or flipped; each piece is placed exactly as it appears in the tray.

Controls

Clearing rows and columns

When every square in a row is filled, the row clears: its blocks disappear and the squares become empty again. Columns clear in exactly the same way. Blocks above or below a cleared line do not fall or move; only the full line is removed. While you hold a piece over a spot, the game highlights every line that will clear when you place it.

Here the bottom row has one empty square. A single block fills it and the whole row clears:

A column clears the same way. Here a vertical line of three blocks completes the column on the right:

Several lines at once

One piece can complete a row and a column at the same time, or several of each. All of them clear together. In this example a small corner piece of three blocks fills the last gaps of the bottom row and of the first column, so two lines clear at once:

The scoring page explains how many points each clear is worth.

The pieces

The tray can show 37 different shapes, in the families below. Every piece gets a random color, which has no effect on the game.

• A single block.
• Straight lines of 2, 3, 4 and 5 blocks, lying flat or standing up.
• A square of 2×2 blocks and a large square of 3×3 blocks.
• Rectangles of 2×3 blocks, wide or tall.
• A small corner of 3 blocks, in 4 orientations.
• L shapes of 4 blocks, in 8 orientations (L and its mirror image).
• A large corner of 5 blocks, with two arms of 3 blocks, in 4 orientations.
• T shapes of 4 blocks, in 4 orientations.
• S and Z shapes of 4 blocks, lying flat or standing up.

The 3×3 square and the line of 5 are the hardest to fit; our tips page shows how to keep room for them.

New pieces

You can place the three pieces in the tray in any order. New pieces only arrive when all three have been placed; then the tray fills with three new ones. The game deals new pieces fairly: every new set contains at least one piece that fits on the board at that moment, and the game prefers sets in which all three pieces can be placed. The three pieces of a set always have three different colors.

Early in a game, small pieces are more common. Over the first 20 sets, large pieces such as the 3×3 square, the line of 5, the 2×3 rectangles and the large corner become more common; after that the mix stays the same.

When the game ends

The game is over when none of the pieces still in your tray can be placed anywhere on the board. In the board below there are many empty squares, but no free area of 3×3 squares, so a large square in the tray has nowhere to go. If it is the last piece you have, the game ends:

Pieces that no longer fit anywhere are shown faded in the tray, so you can see the danger coming. When the game ends, a short "No more space" message appears, followed by the result screen: your score, your best score, the lines you cleared, your best combo and how many pieces you placed. Press Play again to start a new game. In Classic you can also share your best score; in the Daily Challenge the result screen has a share button and a countdown to the next challenge.

Pausing and saving

To pause, press the pause button in the top bar, P or Esc. The board and the pieces are hidden while the game is paused. The game also pauses by itself when you switch to another tab or app, or lock your phone.

Your game is saved in your browser after every move. Reload the page or close the tab, and the board, the tray and your score are back the next time you open the site. Classic and the Daily Challenge are saved separately. The saved game stays on your device; it is not stored on our server, so it does not move to another phone or browser.

To start over, press New game in the top bar. If your current game already has points, the game asks you to confirm first. In the Daily Challenge, New game restarts today's challenge from the first piece.

The top bar, statistics and settings

Above the board you see your score and your best score, a switch between Classic and the Daily Challenge, and a row of buttons: New game, Pause, Help, Statistics, Settings and Fullscreen.

• Help shows a short summary of the rules and can start the three-step tutorial again.
• Statistics show, for each mode, the games you played, your best and average score, total lines cleared, your best combo and your board clears. For the Daily Challenge they also show your streak and your best score today.
• Settings turn sound and vibration on or off and let you choose the dark theme, high-contrast block colors, reduced motion and the language.
• Fullscreen makes the game fill the whole screen.