Pixel Blow Up

Pixel Blow Up runs on one rule: nothing can be reached until it is open from outside the board. Everything else in this game follows from that.

Each level is a picture built out of food - a mushroom, a cookie, a slice of watermelon - laid out across the board as colored kegs. Tap a card and every keg of that color goes to work: a hard-hat crew races out and lights a fuse on each matching one. Clear the board and the picture takes its place on your shelf.

The difficulty is reach. A keg walled in on every side cannot be touched, so the rim has to be peeled first, and each color you clear opens the road to the next. Choose the wrong color early and the middle stays sealed.

ONE THUMB, NO DEXTERITY
Tapping a card is the entire control. No swiping, no dragging, no reflex test. Portrait, one-handed, and the crew does the work.

WHERE THE THINKING IS
- Three, four or five slots depending on the level, and a crew keeps its slot until it has cleared every keg it can reach.
- Three cards in hand with nine more showing behind them, so you can plan several moves ahead.
- A card wearing a sleep mark has nothing it can reach yet. Open a way in and it wakes up on its own.
- Fill every slot with crews that can no longer reach anything and you are stuck. Spend a recall to send one home and take the slot back, or restart the level. Clearing levels earns more recalls.
- Five minutes on the clock per level - it is a floor, not a difficulty; even the hardest levels leave real time to spare.

140 LEVELS, 108 PICTURES
Levels run from three colors up to six, and the later ones bury the easy openings. Nineteen pictures come back at a second or third difficulty, so clearing the easy cut of one is not the last you see of it. Every picture you finish takes its place on the shelf with your best time and your clear count under it. Fill the shelf far enough and upgrades open: quicker workers and crews that push out faster. Claiming an upgrade costs nothing - the number on the row is a threshold, never a price.

LEADERBOARD
Ranked by how many levels you have cleared, with a daily, a weekly and an all-time board. No sign-in - open it once and a name is picked for you, change it whenever you like.

A FEW ONE-TIME HELPS
Coins are earned only by clearing levels, never bought with real money, and they buy three one-time helps: see every card left in the deck, pull a reachable card to the front of your hand, or open one extra slot for the rest of the level. One use per help, per level.

WHAT IS NOT IN IT
- No ads.
- No in-app purchases.
- No account and no sign-in.
- No energy meter and no lives.
- Plays offline.

SETTINGS THAT MATTER
Colour-blind marks. Separate switches for sound effects, music and vibration. English, Simplified Chinese and Portuguese, picked up from your phone on first launch and changeable any time. One optional note a day, silent until you say yes.

The crew is waiting at the edge of the board.