Kalabux: Paint Mixing Puzzle

They all said reopening the old paint works was madness. Mix the colours, fill the orders, prove them wrong. Your long-lost uncle left you a paint factory, closed down years ago and silent ever since. Sell it, said the family. Gut it. Forget it. But the brass machine on the workshop floor still gleams, and you mean to prove every last doubting relative wrong. You won't be going it alone. Word of the reopening reaches Old Silas, your uncle's foreman, who kept these machines running for decades before the doors closed. He dusts off his cap and comes back. Kalabux is a steampunk puzzle about colour. Lay brass pipework to carry the three primary paints from their vats, split and merge the lines, and mix exactly the colour each jar needs before the lorry leaves. Simple to grasp, deep to master: red, yellow and blue are all you start with, but route them cleverly and there's no colour you can't brew. MIX WITH PIPES Tap to place pipes, linking the paint vats to the waiting jars. Join two colours to make a third, split a single line to feed several orders at once, and fit it all into the machine's cramped grid. Get it right and the paint flows; get it wrong and you'll be mopping up leaks. SHADES, TINTS AND TONES Research the black and white tanks and the whole trade opens up. A drop of black deepens a colour — dark red, bottle green. A drop of white pales it — pink, sky blue. Both together give a muted tone with the fire taken out. 46 colours in all, from three primaries and a steady hand. BUILD YOUR BUSINESS This is more than a puzzle — it's your factory to grow. Fill orders to earn coin, then reinvest it: • Top up your paint vats and keep the colours flowing • Repair worn seals and patch leaks before they cost you a shift • Upgrade your tanks, lorry and warehouse • Fund R&D to unlock new parts — crow's-foot hubs, skew crosses and more A DAY AT THE WORKS The morning post arrives sealed, one letter at a time — orders, notices, and now and then a commendation. Win the council's approval and take out a licence and the works runs a second shift, with Silas taking the floor at two. Come evening it falls quiet: a pot of tea on the shelf, dried splats to scrub off the parts, seals to mend before the whistle goes again. The factory mouser sees to the rest. A HELPING HAND Stuck on a tricky order? Ask Old Silas; his youth may have left him long ago, but he still knows every routing trick in the book, and he'll walk you through it one step at a time. ONE FOR THE WALL Run the works well and the commendations start arriving — framed certificates for a month without a late jar, for fifty clean mixes, for the day you brew every colour in the trade. Old Silas hangs them himself. AND SOMETHING TO WORK TOWARDS There is a summit to this trade. Run the works well enough for long enough and word of it reaches the borough: an inspection you cannot fail, a commission from the mayor himself, and — if every jar is right — a ceremony, a certificate in his own hand, and a grand clock raised over your floor to stay there for good. The works keeps running afterwards. The clock just tells everyone what you did. FEATURES • Logic and planning, not luck or reflexes • A hand-built steampunk workshop of brass, glass and gaslight • 46 colours to brew from just three primaries • An ultimate goal to work towards, not an endless grind • Plays offline — no wi-fi needed • No account, no sign-up — your progress stays on your device • Play in 20 languages From one silent machine to a colour empire — the orders are waiting. Fire up the works and start mixing.