How to play Carillon: the rules in two minutes

Carillon is a puzzle about chain reactions. There is a field of glowing dots on a night sky, and one thing you can do: tap a dot. What happens next is up to the dots, and working out what will happen is the whole game.

This guide covers everything you need for your first levels. It takes about two minutes to read, and less to try. Level 1 also opens with a short guide on the field itself, which you can skip and replay any time from How to play in Settings.

One tap starts a chain

Tap a dot and it pops, sending out a ring. The ring grows from the dot’s centre until it reaches the dot’s reach, the faint circle drawn around every dot. Any dot whose edge the ring touches pops too, at the moment the ring gets there, and sends out a ring of its own.

So one tap can pop a handful of dots, or most of the field, depending on where you start. The rings are exact circles that all grow at the same speed, so a chain always plays out the same way. There is no luck in it, only reading.

Hold to read, lift to tap

Before you tap, hold. Put your finger on a dot and keep it there: its reach sweeps out as a bright circle, and every dot its ring would touch is outlined. Holding costs nothing, and you can hold as many dots as you like.

Then decide. Lift your finger on the same dot and it taps. Slide off it and nothing happens, so reading the field never costs you a tap. On a computer the mouse works the same way.

The outline shows only what that dot’s own ring touches. Each outlined dot will send out its own ring when it pops, so to see the whole chain, follow their circles outward. Seven beginner tips has more on reading a field.

Big dots reach further

Dots come in three sizes, and size sets how far a ring goes:

• Small dots reach only their close neighbours.
• Normal dots reach a little further.
• Big dots reach a long way, well over twice as far as a small one.

Reach is one way. A big dot can reach a small dot that cannot reach it back, which matters a lot once fields get busy. The first big dots arrive on level 5, and the first small ones on level 10, each with a line of guidance at the bottom of the screen.

Taps and stars

Every level allows one tap more than the fewest that clear it. The top of the screen shows your taps as a row of pips: bright ones for the taps that keep three stars, a dim one for the spare, and hollow ones for the taps you have used. Next to them, the star readout shows the most stars you can still earn.

• Clear the field in the fewest taps for three stars.
• Use the spare tap as well and you still clear it, for two.
• Run out of taps with dots left, and the level asks you to retry. That is one tap on Retry.

The next tap only counts once the last chain has finished, so there is never any rush. How to get three stars explains the scoring and how to use the spare.

More taps, more chains

Only the first three levels clear with one tap. From level 4, every field needs two taps, from level 22 three, from level 55 four, and from level 97 five. Each tap is its own chain, and the trick is finding where each one begins: a dot, or a small group of dots, that no other ring can reach. Those are the only taps that can clear the level in the fewest.

Every pop is a note

A dot’s colour is its note and its size is the octave: big dots are low, small dots are high. Because the notes come from a pentatonic scale, any chain sounds like a little tune, and a full clear sounds like a song. Why every pop is a note explains how that works.

Stuck? Ask for a hint

Tap the light bulb at the top right. The screen dims except for one dot’s reach, that reach sweeps out as if you were holding the dot, and the dots its ring will pop are outlined. It is always the best next tap from wherever the field is now, even after a mistake. Here is how the hint works.

Restart, at the bottom, brings every dot back at any time.

Your first five minutes

1. On the first level, tap any dot. Every one clears it.
2. On the next few, hold a few dots before tapping. Get used to seeing the circles.
3. When a level needs a real read, look for the dots no other circle touches, one start for each bright pip.
4. Don’t chase three stars yet. Clear first, then come back for the perfect read.

In a browser, the keyboard helps too: R restarts, H shows the hint, Enter goes to the next level and Esc goes back.

That’s it. Carillon is free on Google Play and plays in your browser too. The levels start gentle, get steadily harder, and no two of them are the same.