Mochi Link

About Mochi Link

Mochi Link is the classic connect-the-pairs board, the one tile fans know as Onet or Shisen-Sho, dressed up in soft pastel candy chips. Each chip is topped with one of twelve cute fruits - strawberry, lemon, watermelon, blueberry, grapes, orange, green apple, cherry, kiwi, peach, pineapple and banana - and because every fruit is dealt in an even count, the whole grid can always be emptied two chips at a time. You tap a chip to lift and glow it, tap its twin, and if a legal lane joins them the pair vanishes with a sparkle.

The whole game lives in one rule: the connecting lane. Two matching chips clear only when an unobstructed route can run between them through already-empty cells using at most two right-angle turns - three straight segments at the very most. One turn makes an L; two turns make a Z or a staircase; a path that would need three or more bends simply does not count, even when the chips sit close together. That single constraint is what makes a Mochi Link board a reading puzzle: you are constantly scanning for the chip pair whose lane is still open.

There is a clever twist that catches new players out. The lane is allowed to leave the grid entirely and run through the one-cell channel that wraps the whole board, so a chip on the far-left edge and one on the far-right edge can link by sweeping up and over the top rim, or down and around the bottom. Edge and corner chips are often the easiest to clear, not the hardest, once you remember the outside lane exists.

Crucially, the chips never fall, slide, or collapse when a pair clears - the cleared cells just become empty lane and everything else stays exactly where it sat. There is no gravity and no restacking here, which is what separates Mochi Link from match-three and falling-block games: the board you study is the board you solve, and each clear only opens new lanes, never reshuffles the field under you.

The journey runs across 20 hand-built levels in five candy worlds of four boards each - Berry, Citrus, Mint, Ocean and Galaxy. Berry starts gentle with tiny four-wide grids and only three or four fruits; later worlds widen the board toward nine-by-nine, add more fruit kinds, and stop being plain rectangles - Mint introduces punched holes, then come hollow frames and rotated-diamond outlines, so lanes have to thread through awkward gaps. Clear all twenty and an endless run takes over, generating fresh boards that begin at Galaxy-level difficulty and keep climbing toward a ten-wide grid using all twelve fruits.

Behind the scenes a built-in solver checks every board - curated, endless, and reshuffled - before it ever reaches you, confirming it can be cleared all the way down. And because even a solvable board can be painted into a dead end by a careless clearing order, a shuffle button under the board re-scatters whatever chips are left into a freshly re-verified layout, and the game shuffles itself the instant the last legal lane disappears.

How to play Mochi Link

1. Tap a candy chip - it lifts and glows to mark your first pick.
2. Tap a second chip carrying the same fruit to attempt a link - or skip the two taps entirely and drag straight from one chip to its twin, releasing on top of it.
3. If a lane of at most two right-angle turns can join them, a glowing elbow connector snaps along the route and both chips pop in a burst of sparkles.
4. Remember the lane may swing out through the empty channel around the board's edge, so chips on opposite rims can still reach each other.
5. If the second chip is a different fruit, or no open lane exists, your pick just hops to that chip so you can try the next pairing.
6. Empty the whole board to finish the level; tap the shuffle button under the board any time you want the remaining chips re-scattered into a fresh solvable layout.

Controls

Tips & strategy

• Count the bends before you tap: trace the lane in your head and make sure it turns no more than twice. Two chips an inch apart still will not link if the only route between them zig-zags three or more times.
• Lean on the outside lane. The path can hug the empty ring around the board, so a left-edge chip and a right-edge chip usually connect by going up and over or down and under - clear those rim pairs early.
• Open the centre first. Clearing chips in the middle carves long straight lanes that later let stubborn edge and corner pairs reach across the board.
• Re-read the board after every clear, because removing one pair can be the move that finally opens a lane for a pair somewhere else entirely.
• When a fruit appears four or six times, clear the convenient copies first so the last pair of that fruit still has an open lane to travel through.
• Tapping a second chip of the right fruit but no valid lane gives a little red shake and bounces your pick there - it is a free hint that those two are the same fruit but currently unreachable.
• Glance at the 'pairs left' count up top to see how close the board is to empty.
• Stuck for a move? The shuffle button is always safe - it keeps the same chips and only re-arranges them into a verified-solvable layout, and the board auto-shuffles itself if you ever run it dry.

Game features

• Onet / Shisen-Sho connect-the-pairs play rendered as pastel candy chips, each topped with one of twelve distinct fruits (strawberry, lemon, watermelon, blueberry, grapes, orange, green apple, cherry, kiwi, peach, pineapple, banana).
• The signature lane rule: clear two matching chips only when a route of at most two right-angle turns links them through empty cells.
• Edge-wrap lanes - the path may run through the one-cell channel around the whole board, so opposite-rim chips can connect by going around the outside.
• A static board with no gravity: clearing a pair leaves empty lane behind and nothing falls, slides, or restacks.
• 20 hand-built levels across five candy worlds - Berry, Citrus, Mint, Ocean and Galaxy.
• Boards grow from a tiny four-wide grid with three fruits up to nine-wide with ten, in full-rectangle, punched-hole, hollow-frame and rotated-diamond shapes.
• Endless mode after level 20: generated boards that begin at Galaxy difficulty and ramp toward a ten-wide grid with all twelve fruits, every shape in rotation.
• A built-in solver verifies every board - curated, endless, and shuffled - so each one can be fully cleared.
• One-tap shuffle plus automatic reshuffling the moment no legal lane remains, both into freshly re-verified layouts.
• Glowing elbow connectors, sparkle pops, screen-shake, looping background music and gentle synthesized chimes you can mute.
• Unlocked levels saved in your browser; plays instantly on phone, tablet and desktop with no download or account.

The Lane That Sweeps Around the Edge

What makes Mochi Link a reading puzzle rather than a reflex one is the single rule it lives by: two matching fruit chips clear only when a route can run between them through empty cells with no more than two right-angle turns. That is at most three straight segments, an L or a Z, never a fourth bend. So you are not hunting for matches, which are everywhere; you are hunting for the pair whose lane is still open. When a clear succeeds, the elbow connector flashes along its real route and bright white nodes bloom at each corner, literally drawing the geometry you traced in your head.

The detail most players miss is that the lane is allowed to leave the grid entirely. A one-cell empty channel wraps the whole board, so a chip on the far-left rim and one on the far-right rim can link by sweeping up and over the top or down and under the bottom, using only one or two turns out in that border ring. It quietly inverts the usual intuition: edge and corner chips are often the first you can clear, not the last. Learning to see that outside lane is the moment the board stops feeling locked and starts feeling readable.

The drag-to-link gesture is what makes the rule something you feel instead of compute. Press a chip and pull toward its twin; a coloured glow tracks under a white dashed core, an endpoint dot follows your finger, and a mint ring pulses on the target the instant a legal two-turn route actually exists. There is a second quiet tell when you tap: pick two of the same fruit with no open lane and the chip gives a small red shake and your selection hops onto it. That fail is really a free hint, telling you those two are twins but currently unreachable.

Nothing falls or restacks when a pair clears, which is the whole point of this Onet style; the board you study is the board you solve, and each clear only carves new lanes. A built-in solver checks every layout before it reaches you, the round shuffle button under the grid re-scatters the remaining chips into another verified board, and the game reshuffles itself the instant no legal lane is left. There is genuinely no lose state, only a tangle to untangle. Twenty curated levels across Berry, Citrus, Mint, Ocean and Galaxy widen from four-wide rectangles into punched holes, hollow frames and tilted diamonds, then an endless run climbs toward a ten-wide board using all twelve fruits.