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Block Drop

⌨ This one needs a keyboard, so play it on a laptop, desktop or Chromebook.

Block Drop

Block Drop is a lean falling-block puzzle with no menus and no sound, just a court, a preview box and your score. Pieces built from four squares fall one at a time, and you fit them together so full rows vanish.

Jake Gordon wrote it in plain JavaScript on a single canvas. It opens in any desktop browser tab without an install, though you will need a physical keyboard to play.

How to play Block Drop

Press Space to start. A piece appears near the top of a court that is ten squares wide and twenty tall, and it sinks one row at a time. Move it left or right, turn it with the up arrow, or tap down to make it fall faster.

Once a piece cannot drop any further, it locks and the next one, shown in the preview, takes its place. Each new piece can enter at a random column rather than the middle, so glance at where it appears before you react.

A row filled from wall to wall clears, and everything above it slides down. The more rows you clear, the quicker the pieces fall. If a new piece has no space to appear, the round ends.

Controls

ActionKeyboardMouseTouch
Start a gameSpaceClick the start text—
Move sidewaysLeft and Right arrows——
RotateUp arrow——
Fall fasterDown arrow——
Quit the roundEsc——

Tips

  • Keep one column on the side open while you stack the rest flat. A long straight piece dropped into it can clear four rows for 800 points.
  • Each landed piece is worth 10 points, but clearing rows together pays far more, since the bonus doubles with every extra row in a single clear.
  • Check the preview box before placing the current piece. Knowing what comes next lets you leave a matching gap.
  • Avoid covering holes. A single empty square buried under blocks can take several rows to dig out.
  • There is no instant drop, so start moving a piece the moment it appears, especially once the speed picks up.

If you like Block Drop, try these

  • Hextris

    Stacking under pressure gets a twist when blocks arrive from six sides and you rotate the core to sort them.

  • Same Game Blocks

    Clearing blocks without falling pieces: pop same-colored groups and plan big chains to empty the whole box.

Questions

How fast does Block Drop get?

Pieces start by falling one row about every 0.6 seconds. Every cleared row trims that time a little, down to a floor of 0.1 seconds per row.

Does Block Drop keep a high score?

No. The game shows your score and row count for the current round only, and nothing is stored after you close the tab.

Does Block Drop work on tablets and phones?

Not well. There are no touch controls, so a laptop, desktop or a Chromebook with a keyboard is the way to play.

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