Fair pieces

Not released yet. Honest Blocks is still being built. This page describes the rules the game is being built to keep.

How pieces are chosen

• Every piece shape has a published chance of appearing. The chances follow a published schedule: gentler in the first trays of every game, tougher later. The schedule depends only on how many trays you have been dealt, and it is the same for every player.
• Each time your tray refills, the game draws three pieces at random using the chances for that point in the schedule and nothing else.
• The part of the game that picks pieces is given only the random number generator, the published schedule and the number of trays dealt so far. It is never given the board or your score. An automatic test fails the build if anyone ever changes that.
• So the game cannot hand you a piece because it fits, or because it doesn't.

The piece list and the odds

The pieces are: a single square, dominoes, straight lines of 3, 4 and 5, a 2 by 2 square, a 3 by 3 square, 2 by 3 rectangles, small and large L shapes in every direction, T shapes, and S and Z shapes. Pieces cannot be turned, so each direction is its own piece.

Inside the game, the Fair Pieces screen shows every shape with its exact odds. That screen reads the very same file the game draws from, so the two cannot disagree.

Not printed here yet. The odds are still being play-tested before launch, so this page does not list numbers that might change.

Seeds: same seed, same pieces

Every game starts from a number called a seed. The same seed gives the same pieces in the same order on every phone.

• Classic: a new seed every game.
• Daily Puzzle: one seed for the date. Everyone playing on the same date gets the same pieces. The day follows the date on your phone, and the pieces come from the date itself, so the puzzle works offline.
• Challenge a friend: the link carries your game's seed, so your friend gets exactly the pieces you had.

One honest consequence: because the Daily Puzzle's pieces come from the date, they are not a secret. Someone determined could work them out ahead of time and practise. We would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.

Undo is not a reroll

Taking back a move also winds the random generator back. After an undo you get the same pieces you would have had, so an undo can never be used to fish for better ones.

Fair leaderboards

• When a score is sent, the game sends the seed and every move. The server plays the game again with the same rules and works out the score itself. If the two do not match, the score is refused.
• A game that used an undo never goes on a leaderboard, whether or not the player paid.
• Nothing a player can buy affects a leaderboard score.
• In the Daily Puzzle, only your first finished game of the day counts.

The classic game stays the same

After launch, the classic game's rules, pieces and odds do not change. New modes are added beside it, never on top of it.

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