Slide the panels of a wooden puzzle box along their grooves until the lid can leave. A treasure waits at the end of every chapter.
A calm puzzle box game
Every box is one face of a wooden puzzle box, seen from above: patterned panels lying in grooves, and a black lacquered lid beside a gap in the frame. Slide the panels aside until the lid can leave through the gap, and the box is open.
How to play
Each panel lies in a groove cut into the floor, and slides only along it. The black lid has to reach the gap in the frame.
Drag a panel along its groove as far as it will go. Panels never pass through each other, so clear the lid's way one slide at a time.
When the lid reaches the gap it slides out and light spills after it. Open the box in the fewest moves for three stars.
What makes it special
Short panels, long panels and square blocks, each in its own groove. Lit chevrons at a panel's ends show which way it can go right now.
A pinned panel stays put until the panel carrying its mark rests on the matching ring. Some keys are pinned too, so a box opens only in the right order.
A copper coin, a paper crane, a brass bell and rarer finds the deeper you go. Each one rises out of its box and takes its place on your shelf.
A push that cannot go knocks, and what stopped it lights up: the panel in the way, the end of the groove, or the pin and the key it waits for.
Stuck? The hint lights the next panel to move and outlines where it should go, from wherever the panels stand now.
After the first two chapters, a daily box opens, the same for everyone, with a streak to keep and a calendar of past days.
Screenshots
Hako's title screen: the wordmark, a tiny box to open under the tagline, and the Play button
Hako's level 66 in play: patterned wooden panels in their grooves, one with a brass pin, and the black lid with its gold crest
The Hako hint lighting the next panel to move and outlining where it should go
A pinned panel in Hako, with the reminder to slide the panel with its mark onto the matching ring
A paper crane rising out of an opened box in Hako, new on the shelf
The Hako shelf with twelve treasures found, from a copper coin to a daruma, and the rest still silhouettes
About the game
Hako is Japanese for box. Hakone, in the mountains west of Tokyo, has made himitsu-bako, secret boxes, for well over a century: wooden boxes covered in yosegi, a mosaic of different woods, that open only when their panels slide in the right order.
Each level in Hako is one face of such a box, seen from above, and the brass pins are its secret: a panel that will not move until another sits in the right place.
Every box is grown rather than drawn. A face is laid out for the chapter, then changed a little at a time, keeping each change that makes the way to open it longer, until it sits in the chapter's range of moves. Every pin has to matter, so taking any one out would make the box shorter.
Each chapter brings one new thing, from long panels and short grooves to pins, square blocks and chains of keys, and the fewest moves a box needs never drops from one level to the next. No two boxes are alike, even mirrored. The wood, the treasures and every sound are made in code.
Hako is free to play, with no account, no timers and no energy to wait for.
It has a few ads, placed so they never touch a puzzle: a banner below the box and at the foot of the title, the level list and each result, an ad between levels now and then, and short videos you can choose to watch, for a hint or to try a pack. Its shop is optional, since every level opens by playing. The Supporter pack turns the ads off for good and makes every hint free, and the other packs, level keys and the tip jar help pay for the next game.
Made by Shravan Goswami.Credits
From the blog
Guides to opening the boxes, from the game where every panel slides in its own groove.
What waits inside Hako's boxes: a treasure at the end of every chapter, a shelf to fill, woods and lacquers for every box, and the story of the new lacquer logo.
Why no box in Hako can ever get stuck, how its goal is the true fewest moves, how a program climbs to deep boxes, and why the boxes only get harder.
Hako comes from the secret boxes of Hakone, wrapped in yosegi wood mosaic. What I borrowed from that craft, and how every box got a name, a maker and a story.
Questions
Drag a panel along its groove to slide it. Each box is a face of sliding panels with a black lid beside a gap in the frame. Panels move only along their own grooves and never pass through each other, so slide them aside until the lid can leave through the gap, and the box is open.
Yes. Hako is a free Android game, coming soon to Google Play. It shows a few ads, never during a level, and its shop is optional: every level opens by playing.
No. Hako plays completely offline, and your progress is saved on your device. The Android app goes online only for its ads, for purchases through Google Play and, if you use it, for Google Play Games. Without a connection no ads appear, and a hint that would ask for a video is given anyway.
Every box has a goal: the fewest moves that open it. One move is one slide of one panel, however far it goes. Open the box in the goal for three stars, in a few more for two, and in any number for one. The stars at the top show what you can still earn. Undo takes a move back without counting it, and Restart begins the box again.
Hako is free, with nothing to sign up for. It is coming soon to Google Play.
