Rocket Stack: Falling Block Puzzle

What is Rocket Stack?

Rocket Stack is a falling-block puzzle game with a neon twist. Glowing crystal cargo blocks drop into a well 10 cells wide and 20 tall, in seven four-cell shapes we call the Beam, Crate, Prong, Crank, Hook, Step and Swerve. Slide and turn each one as it falls, and fill a row from edge to edge to launch it away. Clear four rows with a single piece for a LIFTOFF, the biggest clear in the game.

Play on your own in Marathon, Sprint 40, Dig, the 3-minute Launch Window or the Daily Run, which deals everyone the same pieces each day. Or go head to head on a split screen: against the computer at Easy, Medium, Hard or Insane, against a friend on the same keyboard or two gamepads, or against another player online, where every clear sends rows of debris to your opponent. It is free, runs in your browser on a phone, tablet or computer, and saves your progress on your device.

How to play Rocket Stack

1. Pick a mode from the menu and press Play. After a short countdown the first piece drops in at the top of the well.
2. Move the falling piece with ← and →, turn it clockwise with ↑ or X and counter-clockwise with Z. On a phone, drag to move and tap to turn.
3. Press ↓ to soft drop (fall faster) or Space to hard drop it straight onto the landing shadow. Flick down on a touch screen to hard drop.
4. Fill every cell of a row to clear it. Clearing two, three or four rows with one piece scores far more than clearing them one at a time; four at once is a LIFTOFF.
5. Press C or Shift to put the current piece in the hold box and bring it back later. You can hold once per piece. The next five pieces are shown in the preview.
6. A piece that lands gets a moment to slide or turn before it locks, but only a limited number of moves reset that timer, so you can't stall forever.
7. The game ends when the stack reaches the top and a new piece has no room. In versus, the last player standing wins the round; win two (or three) rounds to take the match.

Rocket Stack tips and strategy

• Keep the stack low and flat, and leave one column open at the side. When four rows are full except that column, drop a Beam into it for a LIFTOFF.
• Use the preview. Plan where the next two or three pieces go before the current one lands, and use hold to save a Beam for your open column.
• Avoid covering holes. A gap with blocks on top of it can only be cleared after you dig down to it, which costs time and lines.
• Learn to tuck and twist. A piece that is rotated into a snug slot it couldn't drop into earns a Twist bonus, and a Prong twist sends the most debris in versus.
• Clear on back-to-back pieces to build a Chain, and string Liftoffs and twists together for Afterburn; both add points and extra attack.
• In versus, watch the meter beside your board. Clearing lines cancels incoming debris first, so a quick clear can stop an attack before it lands.
• Turn on the finesse trainer in Settings to learn the fewest key presses for every placement, then lower DAS and ARR as you get faster.

Modes

Marathon is the classic endless climb: every 10 lines takes you up a level and the pieces fall faster, until the speed tops out at an overdrive ceiling around level 30. At level 40 the well hits the redline and slag rows start rising from the floor, so every run eventually ends. Sprint 40 is a race to clear 40 lines as fast as you can. Dig fills the bottom of the well with 6, 10 or 14 rows of cargo debris for you to clear. Launch Window gives you three minutes to score as much as possible.

The Daily Run deals everyone the same sequence of pieces each day, with three minutes on the clock and the Boosted special pieces switched on, and it has its own leaderboard. In versus you can play the computer at four levels, a friend on the same screen, or another player online, best of 3 or best of 5 rounds.

Versus rules and attack

In a versus match both players get the same sequence of pieces. Clearing lines sends debris rows to your opponent, each with a single gap they can clear through. A Double sends 1 row, a Triple 2 and a LIFTOFF 4. A Twist (a Prong rotated into a snug slot) sends 2 rows for a single, 4 for a double and 7 for a triple, and a mini twist sends 1 or 2.

Afterburn rewards back-to-back Liftoffs and twists with +1 row, rising to +2 after five in a row and +3 after ten. A Chain of clears on consecutive pieces adds up to +4, and a Clean Sweep that empties your board adds +6. Your own clears cancel incoming debris before anything is sent, and the meter beside your board shows what is on the way: white rows are still arriving, red rows are about to land.

Scoring

A Single is worth 120 points, a Double 350, a Triple 650 and a LIFTOFF 1,100, and twists and mini twists are worth more than ordinary clears of the same size. Afterburn multiplies a clear by 1.4, a Chain adds 70 points for each step, and a Clean Sweep adds 2,800. Every clear is then multiplied by a level factor that grows by 25% with each level, and soft and hard drops add a few points for each row the piece falls.

Special pieces in Boosted

Rocket Stack has two rulesets. Pure is just the seven shapes. In Boosted, a boost meter fills as you clear lines, and when it is full a special piece joins the preview so you can see it coming.

The Charge is a bomb that blasts a 3×3 hole when it lands. The Drill Rocket bores down its column all the way to the floor and plugs the bottom, which often finishes rows that had a gap there. Ghost Glass is a glass shape that can phase through one row of blocks to reach a hole underneath. The Gravity Shard makes every loose block drop straight down and fill the holes below it.

Controls and settings

Keyboard: ← and → move, ↓ soft drops, Space hard drops, ↑ or X rotates clockwise, Z rotates counter-clockwise, A rotates 180° when that option is on, C or Shift holds, Esc or P pauses and M mutes. For two players on one keyboard, player 1 uses A and D to move, S to soft drop, W to hard drop, Q and E to rotate and Left Shift or F to hold; player 2 uses ← and → to move, ↓ to soft drop, ↑ to hard drop, comma and period to rotate and slash or Right Shift to hold. Gamepads work too.

Settings let you tune DAS and ARR (down to an instant 0 ARR), soft-drop speed, 180° rotation, the landing shadow and the finesse trainer, and remap every key. Rotate and hold presses during a spawn are buffered, wall kicks allow tucks and spins, and the stats panel shows pieces per second, attack per minute, finesse faults, clears by type and how many of each piece you played. Colour-blind patterns, reduced motion and touch controls with a hold button are built in, and you can save and watch replays of your best runs.

Rocket Stack FAQ