Ashlar: Daily Block Puzzle

Every block puzzle you have played hides the next piece from you. Ashlar does not. The whole run is on screen from the first move, and every run can be finished, because the board was built by playing it. So when you get stuck, it was not bad luck. It was a move you made, and Ashlar will tell you which one. ONE BOARD A DAY Everybody in the world gets the same board on the same day, derived from the date rather than sent from a server. One attempt. The difficulty is measured, not guessed: a solver plays every board before you do and prices it, so the number next to today's run means the same thing as the number next to last Tuesday's. The week has a shape. Some days are a way back in, one day is the hardest board of the week, and you can see the whole curve on the home screen widget. IT SHOWS YOU WHERE IT WENT WRONG Most puzzle games end with a score. Ashlar ends with an explanation. When a run dies, the solver replays it and finds the earliest move from which the run stopped being completable. Usually that is several moves before the one you thought killed it. It is a strange feeling the first time you see it, and it is the fastest way anybody has ever got better at this kind of game. A RATING THAT MEANS SOMETHING Finishing a hard board moves your rating more than finishing an easy one, because the game knows the difference. It goes down as well as up, and it settles after a dozen rated runs. ENDLESS, AND NEVER UNFAIR A second mode with no end. You can see five pieces ahead, and all five can always be placed: every piece is checked by the solver before it is handed to you. If you get stuck in endless, it was still your move. NOTHING IS FOR SALE There are no in-app purchases. Not a starter pack, not a currency, not a subscription, not one board you can only have by paying. Marks are earned by playing and spent on how the board looks, and that is the entire economy. It started with three mark packs and a full access unlock wired up and ready. They were taken out before launch, because a leaderboard money can move is a price list. BUILT FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE TIRED OF BEING SHOUTED AT No timers. No lives. No streak that punishes you for taking a week off. No advertisements. No account required, and nothing is sent anywhere: your progress lives on your phone. Quiet colours, chosen so that filled and empty separate by lightness rather than hue, which means the whole game works for the one man in twelve who cannot tell them apart by colour. Full Dynamic Type and VoiceOver support, with every square on the board reachable and described. A PICTURE WORTH POSTING Finish a board and you get a card: the shape you left behind, your score, and nothing that gives the answer away. It needs no language and it reads in greyscale.