COUNT DOWN

You start on the 10. You can only ever step onto the next number down.

Nine. Eight. Seven. The path is almost never there.

So you build it. There's an empty gap in the grid — slide tiles into it, drag the number you need across the board, and walk it all the way to 1.

The countdown isn't a timer bolted onto a puzzle. It is the puzzle. You can't take a convenient route, because there's only ever one number you're allowed to stand on next. Take the countdown out and there's no game left.

Stay until zero. It's counting down to something.

How to play

Read this bit — it's the whole game, and it takes twenty seconds.

1. You're the cube. You start standing on the 10.

2. You can only step onto the next number down. On the 10, the only tile you can move to is a 9, and it has to be right next to you. Then an 8. Then a 7. Your current target is shown top-left, and that tile glows on the board.

3. When the number you need isn't next to you, move the board instead. The dark square is a gap. Click any tile touching it and that tile slides in, exactly like a 15-puzzle. Slide tiles around until the number you need is beside you, then step on it.

4. You can't slide the tile you're standing on. Your own weight pins it, so think about where you park before you start rearranging.

5. Reach the 1. Then keep watching.

WASD or arrow keys	step onto your target number
click / tap a tile	slide it into the gap — it goes the way you click
Z	undo (as far back as you like)
R	restart the level
MENU	pause, settings, volume

You can never get permanently stuck. Every puzzle is solvable, and undo has no limit.

Three ways to play

CAMPAIGN — 10 handmade levels, counting down from LEVEL 10 to LEVEL 1, ending somewhere you won't expect. Start here; it unlocks the rest.

DAILY — one puzzle a day, the same one for everybody on earth. Solve it, keep your streak alive, come back tomorrow.

INFINITE — endless puzzles in four difficulties, from a gentle 4x4 up to a 7x6 that will genuinely hurt. See how many you can clear without stopping.

Why the difficulty is fair

Every puzzle in this game — all 10 campaign levels, all 365 dailies, and every puzzle infinite mode can hand you — was run through a solver before it shipped. The solver works out the fewest possible tile-slides needed to beat that exact board.

So the campaign curve is proven, not guessed: LEVEL 10 needs exactly 1 slide, LEVEL 1 needs exactly 10, and every level in between steps up by one. No level can be walked without sliding. Every daily is checked to be the same difficulty as LEVEL 6, so the challenge is identical for everyone. Nothing random ever reaches you unverified.

Also in there

• Music that counts down with you — the soundtrack adds layers as the numbers drop, and every step plays a note from a descending scale, so solving a level plays a countdown out loud
• Leaderboards for full runs, daily puzzles and infinite streaks
• Every number has its own colour, and the cube repaints itself to match whatever it's standing on
• Screen shake, hints, zoom and separate music / effects volume in Settings
• One HTML file. No install, runs in the browser

Credits

Built by TheCodeCoyote for GMTK Game Jam 2026. Theme: Count Down.

Type

• Pixelify Sans — title, headings and menus. Designed by Stefie Justprince (Typecalism Foundry), SIL Open Font License 1.1.
• VT323 — HUD and body text. Designed by Peter Hull, drawn from the glyphs of the DEC VT320 terminal — he emulated the way the CRT's electron beam smeared pixels sideways, which is exactly why it looks right glowing on a dark screen. SIL Open Font License 1.1.

The capital C in the logo isn't from either font. Pixelify Sans closes its C into a near-perfect ring, and next to a zero it read as a second O, so that letter is drawn by hand, pixel by pixel.

Code

• Music and sound effects synthesised live in the browser with Tone.js (MIT)
• Leaderboards run on Supabase
• Puzzle generation, the difficulty solver, art and audio design all made for the jam