wa30 — ARC-AGI-3 game guide

Level 1

• You are the green square; its white edge shows which way you face. Up, Down, Left and Right move you one square. When you aren't holding a crate, pressing a direction turns you to face it even if the move is blocked, so bumping into something is how you turn toward it.
• Action 5 while facing a crate right next to you grabs it. While you hold it, the arrows drag it along with you and you keep facing it, so you can push it ahead, pull it behind you, or slide it sideways. The move only happens if both you and the crate have a free square to move into.
• Action 5 while holding a crate lets go of it. Action 5 with nothing in front of you does nothing but still costs a move.
• You win when every crate sits inside a bay and nobody is holding any of them. The check runs after every move, so a crate held inside a bay doesn't count until it is let go.
• Crates are small squares with a blue middle. The outline tells you their state: white means you are holding it, dark gray means you are facing it, black means a helper or thief is holding it, and darker gray means none of those.
• Bays are rectangles with a blue outline. You and crates can move over them freely. Crates, other haulers and the edge of the board block you.
• The strip along the bottom edge is the move budget: light pink for moves left, darker gray for moves used. Every action costs one, Action 5 and blocked moves included. The budgets are 200, 70, 100, 100, 125, 75, 125, 150 and 70 for levels 1 to 9. The move that uses the last one loses, unless that same move wins the level.
• RESET restarts the current level with a full budget. There is no undo.

Level 2

• You can take a crate straight out of a helper's hands: face the crate and press Action 5, and the helper lets go.
• An orange square helper. Every time you act, it takes one step right after you. It walks the shortest way to a loose crate that isn't already in a bay, grabs it once it is next to it, hauls it into a bay, and lets go. Grabbing and letting go each use up one of its steps. It never takes a crate that someone is holding.

Level 3

• A gray line speckled with green. Nobody can step onto it, not you and not a helper, but a crate can sit on it. Push a crate onto the line and a helper on the other side can pull it off and haul it away.

Boss, 2026-09-17: On level 3 the boxes have to go on the area in the middle. That was not obvious at all. Put the boxes there, then walked around for a while waiting. After that the orange helper does the rest, and you just have to trust it will do it correctly. There is literally nothing for the character to do on level 3 once the boxes are down. Weird, but interesting.

Level 4

• Black wall squares. They block you, the helpers and crates.
• Several helpers and several bays on one board (three helpers on level 4). Each helper works on its own and they all move once per action.

Level 5

Level 6

• Face a thief (its outline turns yellow) and press Action 5 to remove it from the level for good. If it was carrying a crate, the crate drops where it is.
• A purple square thief. It moves once per action, after the helpers, and does the helper's job in reverse: it hauls crates to its own plain gray area and lets go there. It goes after any crate that isn't already in a gray area, including crates sitting in your bays, and it will pull a crate right out of your hands or a helper's.

Level 7

Boss, 2026-09-17: Level 7 was crazy, with a purple guy on the board. He had not realized he could destroy the purple guy.

Level 8

• Helpers and thieves on the same board (two of each on level 8). A helper will carry crates back out of a thief's gray area, and a thief will carry them back out of the bays.

Level 9

Boss, 2026-09-17: Level 9, the final level. Did not make the optimal moves. He had a lot of trouble running out of time. So far WA30 is the only game where running out of time has been a real problem for him as a human.