Challenge games

The beloved bubble shooter, in glowing orbs of light.

A tower defense where light is the whole economy: the field lies dark, wards only strike at what stands in lit ground, and lanterns buy that ground. The shades know what the light costs you; they drain lanterns dark, and devourers carry a gloom that shrinks every light near them. Relight what gutters, raise the pharos, and keep the lattice burning. Every night is the same night, and the longest stands go on the community board.

A ballistics tower defense: every lobbed shot takes real time to fly, so your engines lead the marching column like a hunter leads a bird, and the bends in the road are worth gold. Terraces raise a thrown stone’s reach; armor blunts bolts but never splash; the horn pays gold for boldness. Every siege is the same siege, and the longest stands go on the community board.

A mazing tower defense: there is no road. Wall the open field with wards, sculpt the longest detour you can, and make the shades walk it.

Place your rolls, smash the matching column, and outscore a cunning opponent.

A one-tap tower of lanterns, with a rising chime for every perfect drop.

A pocket idler, and a first taste of Tideward.

The timeless Snake, reskinned as a candle-wick gathering embers across the page.

Falling blocks, reskinned as glowing embers. Bank four rows at once for gold.

The timeless brick-breaker, with a wandering orb of light.

A one-tap flyer: thread a moth through the dim almanac, gap by gap.

A whack-a-mole of will-o-wisps, sixty seconds of glow and grab.

The memory game of growing tones, played on a ring of candle-sconces.

A rising ember, ledge to ledge, as high as you can climb.

Noughts and crosses against a flawless hand, sun and moon seals on a candlelit grid.

A candlelit chase: clear every mote, swallow a beacon, and turn the hunters to prey.

A springy motorbike-physics homage: gather every apple, then touch the flower to finish in your fastest time. Mind the rider's head and the thorny burrs. Ride the built-in pack or forge and share your own courses.

A candlelit tower defense: set wards of light along the winding path and keep the shades from the keep.

A lane defense for the cloister: set casters, gatherers, and bulwarks against the creeping shades.

An arena of living wicks: eat the loose light, surge to cut rival flames off, and never touch what glows another colour.

A pool of hungry wax: drink the drops smaller than you, flee the greater, split your light to catch the quick, and mind the green burrs that burst the mighty.

A homestead-automation idler priced from the real world: buy the right tools, raise a timber-frame house yourself, wire the solar, write the firmware, hire the crew, buy the next field, and sink the dream vault beneath it all. Honest dollars the whole way; only the Frontier shelf leans forward.

The bell-ringing game: five bells, one rope in your hands. Strike your place in every row as the changes weave, from steady rounds through called swaps to the plain hunt, quicker as the night deepens. One button, honest timing, and the band carries the rest.

The lantern-lit fishery: cast, hook the dip, and play the fish on one button. What bites tonight follows the true moon and the night’s weather, and the folio’s rumors tell you when to come back for the rest. Thirty-two entries, four of them fabled, none of them in a hurry.

The parish engine-builder: every week the box spins your little congregation of geese, bees, monks and stranger things, and adjacency pays. Draft one symbol of three, build the engine, and outlast the collector, whose figure only ever rises. Runs end; the compendium is forever.

The arcade classic by candlelight: an ember, a brass rail, and endless walls of illuminated tiles. Where the ember strikes the rail decides its angle; gilded tiles take more blows and pay better; falling favors broaden the rail, temper the pace, or kindle a second ember. Three candles keep the night alive. Every player climbs the same walls, and the best scores go on the community board.

A merge tower defense at the forge: casting pours a crucible of random metal onto a random empty anvil, and dragging two of a kind together fuses them one rung up the ladder, tin to copper to bronze, on up to star-steel. Every fusing overflows in a ring of molten metal that no armor blunts; time it into an armored column. The metals run in a fixed vein, the same for everyone, and the longest firings go on the community board.