How to play

Move a stone along the walls. It can hang across a corner and keep circling. A stone may rest partway up a wall. The run ends the first time one sticks out the top of any wall. Once it reaches the floor, each part slides in from its own wall, and the stone stops when any part is stopped. A word or a full line on a wall pays a fifth of the floor score, rounded down. While a red square sits on the floor, R turns that floor a quarter. The stones slide with the turn. A word or a full line made that way pays on its own, and those squares rise toward you. Click a wall first, and R turns that wall instead, but only while a red square sits on it. The squares that leave fly toward the far wall, grow, and fade as they pass through it.

A spelled word leaves, and the well shows a short meaning. A full line that spells nothing leaves too, and the well says it cleared only on shape. Stones farther from the middle than that gap slide toward the middle, and the slide can clear again. A word that also fills a line counts each letter twice before the square weighs it. Go too long without a word or a full line and more red squares fall. Those already in the well stir.

A range of levels keeps a theme. Most stones carry letters from it, and a few do not. A word of the theme pays a separate bonus. On the cat range, the cat comes out. Each range also sets a task, shown under the round: a theme word, a long word, a full line, parcels, rare letters or different words. A finished task pays once.

Some feats are carved into the well's own record: a seven-letter word, a carved word spelled whole, a veteran, the stair keeping its dead, and more.

Older wells let a stone only turn once it reached the floor. This one is looser: until you send it with Space, a stone can still be moved and turned, on the walls or on the floor. Space sends the stone on its own. It slides five times as fast, you watch it go, and it takes no more steering.

Words of three to fifteen letters clear. A blank stone stands in for one letter. A word of three or four letters clears only when it is an everyday word, or an old one with a place in verse, like fie, ere, hath or yore. A longer word may be any word in the list.

A three-letter word outside the range's theme stays on the floor as stones to build on. It leaves when it grows into a longer word, when it lies on a full line, or when the floor is half full. A four-letter word that can still grow waits one stone. Five letters or more leave at once.

A stone with a notch in its corner is carved. It carries the start of a long word of the range, and the next stone carries the rest. Lay the rest at the open end and the long word spells.

F and V tip the floor. Loose letters slide to the low edge. Sealed stones, bone plugs and coffin pins do not.

Hold the right button and drag to look around the well. A left click plays the stone. Up turns the stone clockwise, once a press.

Enter starts. Esc pauses. Before the well opens, the arrows left and right turn these pages, and up and down read a long one. On The twenty, X twice wipes the stone.

The well

Rime hides a letter. A spelling beside it peels layers, and a longer word peels more. When the last layer goes, the letter can spell, and the spelling can continue.

A violet stone is a cipher. Its letter is sealed inside a small program in a language built to be unreadable. Each layer you peel beside it runs that program further, and the face shows the program rewriting itself. When the last layer goes, the program prints the letter.

A bone plug has no letter. It cracks only beside a spelling.

A coffin pin holds a stone still until the pin burns down. While it holds, the stone will not spell, peel or slide.

Some squares weigh a letter. Some weigh the whole word. A hush pays nothing. A keepsake leaves a relic when the word is long. The keystone, once, counts twice and frees a wall.

Clear a word or full line over a parcel to collect one resource immediately: +B bone, +I ichor, +R relic, +S shard. Each parcel pays once. Every eight clear waves, on floor or walls, the blessings move and eight fresh parcels appear. Crossing words and lines in one wave count once. Shop unlock marks and the center keystone stay put.

The level rises with every twenty-eight letters cleared, so a long word lifts it as far as its letters. The side of the glass shows your longest word and how many words reached four letters.

Clearing the floor makes the next spelling count twice. A word that spends itself on deep rime pays the stair less. When a clear leaves no lettered stone on the floor, every wall steps one row down. What lands is read again, as a word, a full line, or both together.

The tomb

Mail and a lit lamp can take lampmail, for one bone and an ichor. The lamp takes two extra blows before it goes dark. A banshee does not take lampmail.

Patient is a third veteran discipline, for one relic: every four stair steps it mends one life, up to the defender's maximum. It never revives the dead. The landing names the steps until the next mend. Time spent paused does not count.

Mail and unused salt can take saltplate, for two bones and a shard: the next three incoming blows lose one point each. A crowned banshee with a lit lamp can take mournglass, for an ichor and a relic: its next three cries drink one more sanity. The landing names the charges left. Spent bindings stay spent.

A veteran may also choose one discipline, for one relic. Steadfast adds two life. Fervent adds one harder blow, or room for one more mana to a hexer, or one more sanity drained by a banshee. The choice stays for that run and cannot be changed. It may be chosen beside a binding.

Two parts can be bound into one lasting work. A striking defender wearing mail and a whetstone can take graveplate: two more life and one harder blow, for two bones and a relic. A hexer with a lit lamp can bind its phial into wickglass: room for six mana, filled once, for an ichor and a shard. Score both parts' floor marks first. Pick the landing and aim the defender, then bind. Each defender bears one binding; the parts keep their old powers. A later mana phial fills the larger glass.

Short words give bones. A four-letter word gives two, and each letter past four gives one more. Words of five or more also give ichor. A relic comes from a word of seven or a full line. A rare letter leaves a shard.

Seven floors stand over the throne. Each ladder is at the other end from the one above. Raise a landing, set spikes, and set a skeleton, a ghoul, a banshee, a dark knight or a warden. A spike holds three crossings, then it is spent. A warden stands in the middle, holds every hero on that landing, and shrugs one point of a blow. A censer burns for four steps, mending whoever stands there and softening a banshee, then it goes out. A bell pulls the heroes on that landing and the one above back toward the ladder. Each other defender holds one hero. A hero with no partner keeps descending. The stair hums lower as a hero comes closer to the throne. A blue square that stays too long freezes one wall. A frozen wall holds a pale light. The stone stays, and the light falls on the floor and the other walls. Turning a wall opens every frozen wall. If any wall was frozen, that opening pays ten thousand times the round. B holds the stones.

The fallen leave remnants on their landing for a few steps. A hero's bones pay one bone as they fade. A defender standing where two heroes have fallen becomes a veteran: more life, a harder blow, and a chevron over its head. A fallen veteran leaves a banner that pays a relic.

A banshee drinks sanity instead of holding the landing. If a hero reaches the throne, the well is lost. If every wall locks, the well is lost.

How this was made

C scores a clear, applies a square's weight, and peels rime. A text format places a stone on the floor. Zig draws the next letter. The page plays the same if those files are missing.

Rust times how long a short word waits to grow. C++ holds short words and reads when the floor is crowded. D pays the length ladder. Odin ages the remnants on the stair. Grain ranks veterans. Hand-written WAT turns letters into levels. Zig cuts carved stems. AssemblyScript reckons the ladder share. Go chooses the line a fallen hero gets. Malbolge holds each cipher stone's letter: one of twenty-six generated programs runs a step for every layer peeled, and what it prints is the letter. Each answers only after it agrees with its JavaScript twin.