How to play Shells

The code

There are 25 types of Shell: 5 colors (Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple) times 5 shapes (Circle, Square, Triangle, Diamond, Star).

Slot 1 of the code is shown to you. Slots 2 to 6 always hold five different colors and five different shapes, so no color and no shape appears twice.

Reading a result

After a Launch you see a total over slots 2 to 6, never which slot it was about:

• Boom right color and right shape
• Fizz right color or right shape, not both
• Dud neither

In Launch 3, 6 and 9 the Fizz is split into Color and Shape, so you learn a little more.

The game keeps track of what you can be sure of. An amber ≠ on a Shell means it can't be on that spot, but it may belong somewhere else. A red ✕ means that Shell is not in the code at all.

Your Shells and Ghosts

A solid Shell in your Rack is one you own: it earns Sparks. A Ghost, the see-through outline, is a type you don't own. It counts for the result just the same, but earns nothing.

Each Shell can play once per Launch number in a Round. After it helped crack a code, it rests until the next Round.

Bought a Shell that its previous owner already played this Round? Then it's yours to play from the next Round. Its Sparks always stay with the Shell.

Sparks

Crack a Rack and every Shell of yours in that Launch earns 1 Spark plus 1 for every Launch you had left: 10 Sparks in Launch 1, 7 in Launch 4, still 1 in Launch 10. Before the crack, every Boom on one of your own Shells earns 1 Spark.

Sparks change how your Shell looks: Cardboard, then Steel at 20, Silver at 40, Pearl at 60 and Crystal at 90. When the season ends, Sparks decide your share of the prize pot.

Bonus game

After a crack comes the Bonus game: 25 boxes, with bonus Sparks hidden in some of them. Every Launch you saved becomes a pick. Crack in Launch 4 and you open 6 boxes; you always get at least 1.

What you find goes to every Shell of yours from the crack. No Shells yet? Then every Spark you find is a ticket for that week's Gift Shell draw.

After the Round

When the Round ends you see the code, what each slot was, and what each of your Shells earned.

Each code comes from a secret that is locked with a hash before the Round starts and published after it ends, so anyone can check that nothing was changed along the way.

Playing for free

You don't need Shells or a wallet to play: sign in with your email and play with Ghosts. You won't earn Sparks, but cracking a Rack gives you tickets for the weekly Gift Shell draw. To receive a Gift Shell you link a wallet.