ka59 — ARC-AGI-3 game guide

Level 1

• Click a green box to select it. The selected box has a white center; the others have a dark center. Every click costs 1 step, even on empty floor or on the box that is already selected.
• Arrow keys move the selected box 3 cells. Every arrow press costs 1 step, including one where the box is blocked and does not move.
• There is no undo. RESET restarts the level with a full budget.
• Dark gray outline frames are the targets. The level is won the moment every frame has a piece sitting exactly inside it, one cell in from the outline on all sides, so the piece has to be the frame's size. Pieces with no frame to fill do not matter.
• Driving into another piece does not move your box. Instead the piece you hit is knocked in that direction, 3 cells a frame for 5 frames (about 15 cells), all in one move. Anything in its way gets shoved along with it. If the piece at the far end of the line is against a wall, nothing in the line moves, and the knock is over.
• Gray walls stop everything. Purple areas only stop the box you are driving: a knocked piece slides straight across purple, and if it would come to rest on purple it keeps sliding until it is clear. On level 1, a box sitting 12 cells left of the purple strip and knocked right travels 18 cells instead of 15 for that reason.
• The bottom row is the step bar: dark gray for what is left, turning white from the right as you spend. Budgets are 100, 127, 100, 127, 100, 150 and 200 steps for levels 1 to 7. When it hits zero you lose, unless that last step completed the board.
• All green boxes have a green outline. On the selected box, any side that is touching another piece turns white, and a white line flashes on the side you bumped while the knocked piece slides away.

Level 2

• Boxes and frames come in more shapes: 3x3, 3 wide by 6 tall, 6 wide by 3 tall, and 6x6. Each frame only counts a box of its own shape.

Level 3

• Yellow special blocks (9x9) with their own larger frames. You cannot select them: the only way to move one is to knock it with a box (or, later, a bomb blast). Level 3 has two of them and only one green box.

Level 4

Level 5

• Bombs are pieces too: drive into one and it gets knocked like anything else, so you can move a bomb to aim its blast.
• Bombs: dark red squares that fill with orange one row for every arrow press (clicks do not count). When the last row fills, the bomb shoots an orange blast out of the side the fill was heading toward, growing 3 cells a frame, and knocks anything it touches the same way, your own box included. Then the bomb goes dark red and starts filling again. Small bombs go off every 3 presses, big ones every 6.
• Level 5's special block (a small blue one) is placed outside the visible board and has no frame, so it plays no part. The level itself is one green box, one frame and five bombs, with the box starting inside a purple pocket that the big bomb caps.

Level 6

Level 7