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Cascade
Arcade · Oldies · plays in your browser, no download
Columns of three coloured stones fall. You cannot turn the column — you can only roll the three colours around inside it. Line up three of a colour in any direction and they go, what is above drops, and that can set off the next one by itself.
Where it comes from
The column of three stones began in 1989 as an evening project by an engineer teaching himself to draw graphics on a workstation. It spread the way software spread before app stores: by hand, desk to desk, then as shareware on other machines, and in the end into the arcades.
The difference from the other falling-piece games is a real design difference, not a reskin. Elsewhere the piece has a shape and you rotate it. Here the piece is always the same — three stones, straight up and down — and what you control is the order of the colours inside it. The question stops being where does this fit and becomes which colour do I want at the bottom, which is slower, more deliberate thinking.
How to play
| Move | Left and right arrows, or the buttons on a phone. |
|---|---|
| Cycle the colours | Up arrow, or tap the column. The three colours roll round; the column itself never turns. |
| Drop | Down arrow to speed it up, space to drop it now. |
| Clearing | Three or more of a colour in a line — across, down or diagonally. |
Diagonals count, and they are the thing beginners never look for. A column dropped beside a staircase of the same colour clears without ever lining anything up straight.
Our version
Chains that pay: when a clear makes stones fall and that fall clears again, the second one is worth more than the first, and the third more than the second.
Three things that help
Build staircases. One colour stepping up one square per column is the shape that clears on a diagonal, and it is the easiest chain in the game to set up deliberately.
Keep the stack uneven on purpose. A flat field gives you nowhere to park an unwanted colour. A field with one low column does.
Do not clear the moment you can. One extra stone held back often turns a single clear into a chain, and a chain is worth several clears.