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How to play Orbital Drop

Goal

Pieces made of four coloured balls drop into the well. When a piece lands it splits apart — every ball falls on its own until it rests on another ball or the floor. Line up three or more balls of the same colour in a straight line — across, up and down, or diagonally — and they pop. Keep the well from filling to the top!

Modes

• 🧩 Solo — the pieces fall faster at every level. How long can you last?
• 🌙 Zen — the speed never goes up. Play at your own pace (new colours still arrive).
• ⚔️ Battle — against a friend or the computer. You each have your own well and get exactly the same pieces. Every 1,500 points you score pushes a row of grey moon rocks into your opponent's well from the bottom. The bar at the top shows how close your next row is. The speed goes up for both of you every 30 seconds. The first to overflow loses.

You can start any mode at level 1, 5 or 10.

Controls

• Keyboard: ← → move (hold to slide), ↑ or X rotate clockwise, Z rotate anticlockwise, ↓ soft drop, Space hard drop, C or Shift hold, P pause (Solo and Zen).
• Touch: drag left or right on the well to move one column at a time, tap to rotate, flick down fast to drop, drag down slowly to soft drop. Tap the Hold box to hold. The buttons under the well do the same: Left / Right, Hold, Down (fall faster), Drop (straight to the bottom) and Turn.
• The faint outline shows where your piece will land. Hold puts the falling piece aside in the Hold box and brings in the next one. Press it again later to swap the saved piece back in — handy when the piece you have doesn't fit but would be perfect later. You can hold once per piece. The Next box shows the two pieces coming up.
• Rotating a piece turns its colours with it — even the square piece, whose four balls go round.

Chains

After balls pop, everything above them falls. If that makes a new line it pops too — a chain. Each step of a chain scores more: ×2, ×3, ×4…

Special balls

• ☄️ Comet — match 4 in a line. It shows arrows along its line. When it pops later it clears the whole line in that direction (across, up and down, or diagonally).
• 💥 Bomb — match two lines of the same colour that cross or touch in an L, T or + shape (5 balls or more). When it pops it blows up everything within two spaces.
• 🌈 Nova — match 5 in a line. A rainbow ball that counts as any colour in a line. When it pops it clears every ball of the colour it was matched with.
• A special appears where your piece landed (or in the middle of the match), in the match's colour. Specials hit by other specials go off too — big chain reactions score big.

Moon rocks (Battle)

Rows of grey rocks pushed up from the bottom, each with one gap. Rocks never match, but they crumble when a match happens right next to them (above, below or beside), or when a special blasts them.

Levels and colours

Every 25 balls cleared is a new level. Levels 1–2 use 4 colours, 3–5 use 5, 6–9 use 6, and from level 10 all 7 colours are in play. Every colour also has its own pattern — a symbol on the orbs, a different sport's ball, or a different planet — so you never have to rely on colour alone.

How the game ends

When a column fills right up, or a new piece has no room to appear. Solo and Zen scores go into your top 10 on this device. A reload carries on a Solo or Zen game where you left it.

Tips

• Diagonals count! Look for slopes in your stack.
• Keep the middle low — pieces appear there.
• Build up two colours side by side, then drop the piece that links them for a chain.
• In a battle, save a special for when the rocks arrive: one blast clears a lot of them.

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