Slide the panels, free the lid: the rules of Hako

Learn Hako on its first boxes: slide each panel along its groove until the lid can leave. Brass pins, stars, the hint and the treasures, one box at a time.

Shravan GoswamiShravan GoswamiMakes the gamesShravan runs Chaosmos. He designs the games, plays every build on his phone, and decides what ships., updated , 5 min read
Hako's first box opening: a patterned panel slid down its groove and the black lid sliding out of the gap in the frame

The first box in Hako has two pieces in it: one patterned panel and the black lid. The panel stands in the lid’s way. Slide the panel down, slide the lid out through the gap, and the box is open.

One rule: slide along the grooves

Every box is one face of a wooden puzzle box, seen from above. Each panel lies in a groove cut into the floor, and it slides only along that groove, never across it. Panels never pass through each other, and a groove can stop short, so a panel may only have a step or two to move.

The black panel with the gold crest is the lid. The box opens when the lid reaches the gap in the frame, so the puzzle is always the same question: what has to move, and where, before the lid can get out?

Hako's level 1 in three steps: the panel in the lid's way, the panel slid down, and the lid gone through the gap

Reading a box

The box tells you a lot before you touch it.

  • Every groove is cut into the floor, with a tick at every stop.
  • The chevrons at a panel’s ends light up for each way it can slide right now.
  • While you hold a panel, its groove lights up.

Push a panel where it cannot go and it knocks and shakes, and whatever stopped it lights up: the panel in the way flashes, or the end of the groove glows. So a wrong push is never a mystery.

Moves and stars

Drag a panel along its groove and let go. One move is one slide of one panel, however far it goes, so sliding a panel all the way across counts the same as a single step.

Every box has a goal, the fewest moves that open it.

  • Three stars: open the box in the goal.
  • Two stars: a few moves over. The leeway is 2 on short boxes and grows with longer ones.
  • One star: open it in any number of moves.

The stars at the top show what you can still earn, and one goes out as soon as it can no longer be won. Undo, in the bottom row, takes your last move back without counting it, and Restart puts every panel back where the box began. Every slide can be slid straight back, so no box can ever get stuck.

Level 1 walks you through all of this with a short guide and a ghost finger that drags each move. How to play in Settings brings it back whenever you want it.

Brass pins

From chapter 4, some panels carry a brass pin head, and a pinned panel cannot move at all. Its key is another panel carrying the same mark, inlaid in its wood, and a ring of that mark is cut into the floor. Slide the key onto its ring, and the pin rises: the pinned panel’s chevrons light up, and it slides like any other.

Push a pinned panel and the pin and the key’s mark blink, with a dashed line to the ring, and the first time it happens in a box the game says it in words too. A pin, its key and its ring always share a shape as well as a colour: a circle, a triangle, a square or a diamond.

A Hako box with brass pins, their keys marked on other panels, and rings cut into the floor

Later chapters bring two pins at once, a lid that is pinned itself, and keys that are pinned too, which have to be freed in order, like a real secret box.

When you are stuck

The light bulb at the top right is the hint. It lights the next panel to move and outlines where it should go, and picking that panel up keeps the outline in view. It is the first move of a shortest way to open the box from where the panels stand now, so it still helps after a few wrong slides.

Every hint on the first 15 levels is free. After that the Android app gives you 3 free hints a day, and a hint beyond those asks for a short video you can choose to watch. With the Supporter pack every hint is free.

The Hako hint lighting the next panel to move and outlining where it goes

Treasures and the shelf

The last box of every chapter holds a treasure, the same one for every player. When its box opens, the lid slides out, light spills after it, and the treasure rises out of the box with its name and a line about it. The first ones are everyday things, a copper coin, a boxwood comb, a paper crane, and they grow rarer the deeper you go.

The shelf, from the title screen, shows every treasure you have found, and the rest as silhouettes with the level that holds each one.

A paper crane rising out of Hako's level 60, the last box of its chapter, with its line "Folded from one sheet of washi, never cut."

A few habits

  • Find the lid first, then trace the way to the gap and see what stands in it.
  • Ask what each blocking panel needs. Often it needs another panel moved first.
  • Long panels need more room to get out of the way than short ones.
  • With pins, settle the key before you chase the panel it frees.
  • Open the box first, then come back for three stars.

After the first two chapters, a daily box opens as well, the same for everyone, with a streak to keep. There is more about the game on its page.

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