F12Bet

A stone slab, a handful of glowing runes, and a strict number of taps. That is the whole of this puzzle, and it is quite enough to keep you staring at the board long after you thought you had the answer. Every rune carries a brass arrow. Tap one and its blast travels in a straight line in the direction that arrow points, setting off each rune it crosses on the way. Those runes fire in turn, in their own directions, so the chain bends, branches and spreads across the slab from a single touch. Your goal is to shatter every amethyst crystal on the board, and you must do it within the few taps the level allows. One tap, well chosen, can clear the slab. One tap in the wrong place leaves half the crystals glittering and your budget gone. That is where the reading comes in. Before you touch anything, you trace the lines in your head: this arrow sends a blast east into a rune that points south, which wakes a rune pointing back west, and somewhere along that path a crystal either falls or survives. Stone blocks sit in the way and stop a line dead, so a chain that looks unstoppable can be cut short by a single grey obstruction. Cracked crystals refuse to break on the first hit and need a second blast to finish them, which means planning two passes through the same square. Brass-ringed runes are the real mischief: after they fire they turn a quarter, so their direction on your second tap is not the direction you saw first. Use one twice and you are working with a board that has quietly rearranged itself. There are fifteen levels, and they are built to be thought about rather than rushed. The early slabs teach you to follow a line and trust where it goes. Later ones hand you a tight tap budget, a few awkwardly placed blocks and a brass ring or two, and leave you to realise that the obvious opening move wastes the chain you actually needed. Nothing is hidden from you. Every arrow, every crystal and every block is visible from the first moment, so a failed attempt is never bad luck — it is simply a solution you have not found yet. Tap, watch the blast run, and start again with better information. The pleasure here is the moment the whole slab clicks into place: you see the one rune that sets everything else in motion, the chain turns exactly as you pictured it, and the last amethyst crystal breaks with a tap still spare. Quiet, orderly, and extremely satisfying to work out.

Arcanta Blast 2.0