Think Inside the Box.
Play it here → njank.at/squarez
You are a red square. Squares fly at you from every direction. Some make you grow. Some try to kill you. Everything else is a weapon — if you know how to use it.
Move your mouse (or drag your finger) to control the red square. That's it. The square follows your cursor.
Collect squares by touching them. Every square does something different. Your goal is to survive as long as possible while racking up points.
This is your square. It follows your cursor. Touch other squares to interact with them. Your size grows as you collect blue squares, and shrinks back when you touch a green one. If you grow too large you become harder to control — but also harder to miss with.
The most common square. Touch it to gain size and earn points. Early on, you'll mostly be chasing these.
Touching green resets your size back to the starting size. Useful if you've grown dangerously large and can't dodge anymore. At high levels they appear more often — sometimes they're a lifesaver.
Rare and powerful. Touching magenta gives you a massive size boost, speeds up spawning, and throws squares at you from all directions for 6 seconds. High risk, high reward.
Touch this to permanently upgrade one of your weapons (chosen at random). Each weapon can be upgraded through four tiers. Once all weapons are maxed, no more upgrade squares appear.
Touching a yellow square fires a weapon from your position. There are five weapons in total — lightning, bomb, boomerang, laser, and whirlpool. Each can be upgraded independently. See the Weapons section below for details.
Grey squares don't reward you — they disrupt you. Touching one triggers a negative effect like changing spawn direction, shuffling the board, or temporarily warping your square. They grow more frequent as the game progresses. See the Grey Squares section below for details.
Instant game over. Don't touch it. They get more frequent as you level up.
Launches bolts that seek out nearby squares and chain between them. Great for clearing clusters.
Explodes in a radius around your position, destroying every square caught in the blast.
Fires curved projectiles that bounce off walls and your red square. They ricochet multiple times before fading.
Fires a beam in the direction you were last moving. The beam tracks your movement in real time — keep moving to sweep it across enemies. A star glows at the tip.
Launches a spiral burst of projectiles that curve outward from your position. More projectiles = wider coverage.
Changes the direction squares spawn from. They start coming from a different edge of the screen, which can surprise you.
Shuffles the types of all visible squares at random. Potentially turns a field of harmless blues into something dangerous — or into weapons.
Temporarily warps your red square with a pulsing visual effect and inverts normal gameplay behavior for a few seconds. Everything looks strange — but the game keeps going. It's a distraction, not a death sentence. Stay calm.
Every time you touch an orange UPGRADE square, one weapon gets upgraded to the next tier. There are four tiers:
| Tier | Effect |
|---|---|
| I | Base version of the weapon |
| II | More projectiles / larger blast / longer beam |
| III | Significantly stronger |
| IV | Maximum power |
Upgrades are permanent for the run. The upgrade square stops spawning once all weapons reach tier IV.
Your level rises automatically as you score points. Higher levels mean:
- Squares move faster
- More squares spawn at once
- Black squares become much more frequent
- Grey hazard squares appear more often
- Blue squares become slightly less common
Grow first, fight later. Early on, focus on blue squares. The bigger you are, the easier it is to catch everything.
Don't stand still. The laser fires in your last movement direction — keep sweeping the mouse to aim it at clusters.
Watch where the black square lands. It never disappears. Once a few black squares pile up, the playfield shrinks. Plan your escape routes early.
Use green squares intentionally. If you've grown so large you can't dodge, a green square is a reset. Don't accidentally avoid them.
Upgrades are random. You can't choose which weapon levels up. If you want a specific weapon maxed quickly, you need luck — or a lot of orange squares.
The whirlpool curves. Whirlpool projectiles spiral outward in one direction. They're not useful point-blank — fire them into open space and let them sweep the area.
Pause is your friend, not a cheat. If you pause and move your cursor while paused, your square will accelerate slowly from its old position to your new one when you resume. You can't teleport — you still have to survive the journey.
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Mouse move | Move red square |
| Touch drag | Move red square |
| ESC | Pause / Resume |
| Two-finger tap | Pause / Resume (mobile) |
| Tab | Toggle colorblind mode |
- Colorblind mode — toggle from any menu or press Tab. Uses the Wong (2011) colorblind-safe palette.
- Dark mode — toggle from any menu. Inverts the background and adjusts all colors.
- Both modes can be combined.
Points are earned by touching blue and magenta squares. Your score drives level progression — the higher your score, the faster the level curve climbs.
The end screen shows your final score, level reached, maximum size achieved, and total time survived.
Good luck.