The idea
Each tower ranks one thing by one measurement. Today's theme might be "spiciest peppers, by Scoville heat", or the tallest statues, the highest-grossing films, the deepest lakes, the oldest animals. The blocks stack from the bottom up, and the block at the top of the tower is the highest value.
The first block — the middle value of the thirteen — starts on the ground with a 📍 marker, so you begin with a reference point rather than a blank column. The other twelve fall one at a time. For each one you decide where it belongs relative to what is already stacked, and you have to decide before it lands.
Your turn, step by step
- A block appears above the tower, labelled with the item's name. The value is hidden.
- Tap the gap where you think it belongs. Once a gap is selected it is highlighted, and you can move your choice as many times as you like while the block falls.
- Tap again — or press Drop — to commit.
- If the tower is still in order, the block locks into place and stays green.
- If it is out of order, the block cracks the tower and slides to its real position, so the tower is still correctly ordered but you have damaged it.
You get 15 seconds per block. The timer pauses while the tab is hidden or a menu is open, so a phone call does not cost you a tower. If time runs out, the block lands wherever your aim marker happens to be — and if you never aimed at all, it lands on top of the tower.
Winning, and cracking
Because the values are hidden, "right" simply means the tower is still in order after you place it. If two items are close enough that either order is defensible, either is accepted. You are judged on whether the stack makes sense, not on whether you matched the generator's exact list.
Three cracks and the tower collapses, which ends the attempt. The results screen scores each of your twelve placements:
| Mark | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 🟩 | Placed correctly — the tower stayed in order. |
| 🟨 | One gap off. Nearly right, but it still cracks the tower. |
| 🟥 | Further off than one gap. |
| ⬛ | Never placed, because the tower collapsed first. |
Only at the end are the numbers revealed. Every block turns to show its real value, and the results list gives the theme's source and the year the figures are from. Values that are estimates by nature — animal lifespans, averages, populations that are only counted occasionally — are labelled "about".
The daily tower
One theme per UTC day, the same tower for everyone, with the same thirteen items and the same falling order. The daily is numbered and has its own countdown on the homepage.
- Your first finish of the day is your official result. Play the tower again afterwards and the game treats it as practice; your share button still posts the result you banked first.
- Your streak counts consecutive days you finished the daily, and it lives in your browser.
- The daily rotates through themes in a fixed order, so the flavour of the day changes: peppers one day, planets the next, river lengths after that.
Endless mode
Endless throws shorter towers at you — seven items, one on the ground and six falling — and squeezes the clock as you go. The first tower gives 12 seconds per block, and each tower after that takes a second off, down to a floor of 6.
It also gets harder in a subtler way. Each tower draws its seven items from a window of neighbouring values, and that window narrows by about 15% per tower. Early towers are wide apart and easy to place; later ones are genuinely close calls.
Three cracks across the whole run end it, and a perfect tower mends one crack — so a clean tower is worth more than it first appears. Your score is the number of blocks you placed correctly, and your best score is saved in your browser.
Habits that help
- Reason from the 📍 anchor. The starting block is the middle value by definition. Half the items belong above it and half below, which immediately rules out half the gaps for any item you are unsure about.
- Place the ones you know first, in your head. You cannot reorder, but you can decide quickly which items you are confident about and slow down only for the ones you are not.
- A near miss still counts as a miss. 🟨 looks encouraging and cracks the tower just the same. When two gaps feel equally defensible, commit to one rather than running the clock down.
- Do not let the timer decide for you. A timeout drops the block at your aim marker with no thought behind it; choosing between two plausible gaps yourself is always better.
- Read the reveal. The end screen names the source and the year for every theme. That is where you learn that your instinct about coffee caffeine was off by a factor of two, which is the point of the game.
A note on accuracy
Every daily theme is prepared and fact-checked before its day, and values that sources disagree about are left out rather than guessed. If a figure is wrong or has been overtaken by new data, the ranking still stands for the day it ran, and the fix goes into a future tower. Corrections are genuinely welcome — the feedback box on the end screen reaches the person who checked the numbers.
More guides: Type to Defuse · Pocket Mate · Connecthing · About the club