MAKE10 — A NUMBER PUZZLE WHERE LINES THAT ADD TO TEN DISAPPEAR

Make10 is a free browser puzzle game. Pairs of numbered tiles fall onto a 7 × 14 grid, and any straight line of touching tiles that adds up to exactly ten vanishes. Nothing to download, no signup, and it works on a phone as well as a laptop.

HOW TO PLAY

• Any straight run summing to ten clears. Two tiles or five — 6+4 works, and so does 3+2+4+1. It has to be a straight line, across or down; bent shapes don't count.
• Move with the arrow keys or the on-screen D-pad. The rotate button swaps the falling pair around, which is how you decide which of the two lands where.
• Cleared tiles drop whatever was above them — and if that lands in a new line adding to ten, it clears too. That's a chain.
• Chains multiply. A clear scores 10 points per tile, multiplied by how deep into the chain it happened. The same four tiles are worth four times as much on the fourth link as on the first.
• The board speeds up as you clear. Tiles start falling every 700ms and bottom out at 220ms, losing a few milliseconds per tile removed.

WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT FROM OTHER FALLING-BLOCK GAMES

In most of them you're fitting shapes together. Here the shape is always the same — two tiles — and the puzzle is arithmetic instead. You're not looking for a gap that fits, you're looking for a number that completes a ten.

That changes how it plays. Clearing greedily is usually wrong: the first pair you spot is rarely the one that sets off a chain, and a board arranged for chains scores several times more than one cleared tidily. The strategy guide goes into which columns get dangerous and why.

THE ARITHMETIC IT PRACTISES

There are only five pairs that make ten — 1+9, 2+8, 3+7, 4+6 and 5+5 — and they're listed beside the board so you never have to guess. Spotting them is the only way to play, so the recall gets rehearsed a few hundred times a session without the game ever asking you a question.

That matters more than it sounds, because those five pairs are what most mental addition shortcuts are built on. If you'd rather read about it than play, there's a piece on the four moves that cover almost every sum you'll do in your head. We also keep an honest page on whether brain games actually work, which mostly argues that claims like this one should stay narrow.

QUESTIONS

Is Make10 free?
Yes, completely, and there's no signup. Your best score is saved in your own browser and never sent anywhere.

Does it work on a phone?
Yes. On a small screen the board sits at the top and the D-pad is pinned to the bottom where your thumb already is.

Do diagonal lines count?
No — across and down only. Straight runs keep it unambiguous about what's about to clear.

What happens if a line has more than one way to make ten?
Overlapping runs merge and clear together as a single event. So 8 2 8 takes all three tiles at once, scored once rather than twice.

Can a falling pair already add to ten?
No, that's deliberately never dealt — it would clear itself the moment it landed and waste your turn.

Is this Tetris?
No. No tetrominoes, no line-filling, different grid, different rule. The only thing the two share is that something falls.

→ Try the other game, Food Rescue