Sea Glass: turn every stone
Twenty-eight cubes stacked seven rows high in Atari 800XL or Commodore 64 blue, a hermit crab on top, and every landing turns a cube from sand to sea glass. Bubbles, a gull, two lifebuoys, and a mood the game and you keep together.
Sea Glass is a cube-hopping pyramid game after Gottlieb's 1982 Q*bert, set on the shore. Twenty-eight cubes stand seven rows high, drawn isometric. A hermit crab hops from cube to cube on the diagonals only, and each landing turns a cube's top from sand to sea glass. Turn every top and the pyramid is clear. Later pyramids need two landings per cube, with a frosted step between; later still, landing on finished glass turns it back to sand. Bubbles drop in at the top and bounce down at random. A gull follows the crab. Two lifebuoys float at the sides, and hopping onto one carries the crab back to the top; take one with the gull close behind and it follows you off the edge. Hopping off anywhere else, or touching a bubble or the gull, costs a crab. The game keeps a mood with you. Every cube you turn raises its energy, every full row raises it more, and a fall lowers its calm. DAWN is warming up. FLOW is a run of cubes without a slip, the glass brighter and the music open. RUSH is hot colors, raster bars, quicker hazards and in a long run one more bubble. DRIFT comes after losses: the bubbles slow, the gull flies off and stays away. You set the dial. CALM has no game over, and a fall puts the crab back on top. RUSH adds a bubble and brings the two-landing pyramids sooner. On a phone, tap the quadrant of the field you want to hop toward. On a keyboard, Q, E, A and D, or the arrows turned 45 degrees the way the home ports turned the joystick. The crab, the bubble, the gull and the sound are original, made for this page. [Play Sea Glass](/sea-glass). [Read the rules as JSON](/sea-glass.json). [Walk Cabinet Row](/cabinet-row).
