Play Same Game online Works — plays right here, unlimited puzzles
Guide updated October 2026 · Runs via WebAssembly (native port)
Same Game is a block-clearing puzzle: click a group of two or more touching squares of one colour to remove it, let everything above fall down and the columns slide left, and try to empty the board entirely. Bigger groups score more. The puzzle is ready below; click a group once to select it and again to remove it.
Controls — what does what
| Action | Keyboard | Mouse / touch |
|---|---|---|
| Select a group | Arrow keys to move, Space or Enter | Left-click |
| Remove the selected group | Space or Enter again | Left-click it again |
| Deselect | — | Right-click |
| Undo / redo | U / R (or Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+R) | Game menu buttons |
FREE This is the complete game, free. Open source under the MIT licence: the complete puzzle, with a new grid every time.
Same Game is from Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection, © Simon Tatham and contributors, used under the MIT licence. Built from source by scripts/build-puzzles.mjs.
How to play
- You may remove any group of two or more squares of the same colour that touch horizontally or vertically.
- After a removal, squares above the gap fall down, then empty columns close up from the right.
- You win by clearing every square; you lose if only isolated single squares remain.
- The default scoring gives (n−2)² points for a group of n, so pairs score nothing and large groups score a lot.
Sizes and difficulty
Presets range from a small 5×5 board with 3 colours to 10×5 and 15×10 with 3 colours, and 15×10 and 20×15 with 4 colours. More colours mean smaller groups and a harder clear. By default each board is guaranteed to be clearable; Custom can turn that off and switch to (n−1)² scoring.
Solving tips
Clearing the board matters more than a big score, so plan from the bottom: removing groups low down shuffles everything above. Leave the most common colour until late, letting it merge into large groups as other colours disappear. Avoid stranding a lone square of a colour that has no other squares left nearby; count what remains of each colour before the end game.
Where this puzzle comes from
Same Game is part of Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection, a set of about forty logic puzzles written by Simon Tatham and contributors and released under the MIT licence. Every grid is generated on the spot, so the supply never runs out, and for the grid-logic puzzles the generator makes sure each has exactly one solution, reachable by reasoning rather than guessing. The version here is the collection's own code compiled to WebAssembly; the Game menu can save a puzzle to a file and load it again, and the Type menu changes the size and difficulty.
Frequently asked questions
Is every board winnable?
Yes, under the default settings every board can be cleared completely. Turning off "Ensure solubility" in Custom removes that guarantee.
Why did my pair score no points?
With the default (n−2)² scoring, a group of two scores zero. Groups of three or more score, and the points rise quickly with size.
Is Same Game free to play here?
Yes, with no limit on the number of puzzles. Same Game is open-source software under the MIT licence, and every grid is generated fresh when you press New game.
Does it work on a phone or tablet?
Yes. A tap works as a click and the puzzle resizes to fit the screen. Puzzles whose controls use the right mouse button are easier with a mouse.
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Want a game like this on your own site?
Same Game isn't ours to give away — we host it, we didn't write it. But eleven of the games here we did write from scratch, and those are free for anyone to put on their own page: one line of HTML, no account, no permission, no attribution beyond a credit line.