Zen Puzzle Blocks

Zen Blocks is an arcade game about a ball, a paddle and a wall of blocks that will not wait for you. Calm in mood, exacting in practice.

How it plays The ball travels at a steady speed and leaves the paddle at an angle set by where it landed: catch it near the edge and it cuts sideways, catch it dead centre and it goes straight up. That is aiming, not luck. Every block you break makes the ball a little faster.

Scoring Each hit on a block scores a point. A block that slips past the bottom of the screen takes away as many points as it had hits left. Hesitation is expensive.

Five balls a level You get five attempts. Lose all five and the level is not cleared — and it starts again in exactly the same arrangement. Nothing is reshuffled, so a level you failed is a level you can actually learn.

Fifteen ways blocks arrive Scattered at random, snaking down from a corner, in rows, falling like rain, bouncing diagonally, drifting slowly, riding a sine wave, swinging like a pendulum, orbiting the centre, creeping towards the ball, packed into a grid, stacked into a pyramid, sliding as columns, or advancing one row at a time. Every level sets a different problem.

Blocks with a will of their own From level five, some blocks bring their own rules: they split in two, pass damage to their neighbours, armour themselves so only a hit from above counts, fade in and out of reach, or quietly run down a timer.

Bonuses and bombs Blocks drop extra balls and helper platforms. Points you have banked can be spent on bombs that strip a hit from every block on screen at once.

Worldwide leaderboard Game Center keeps the score, and everyone is on the same board.

Set your own terms Choose how much of a level counts as cleared — anywhere from 80% to 100% — and set music and sound effects to taste, separately.

No ads. No in-app purchases. Nothing is sold for real money, and nothing interrupts a run.

What’s new

Zen Blocks has been rebuilt from the ground up — lighter, faster and far more responsive.

• New ball physics. The bounce angle now depends on where the ball meets the paddle, so you can aim with it. The ball picks up speed as you clear blocks. • Five attempts per level. Lose them all and the level restarts in exactly the same arrangement. • Eight new block patterns — wave, pendulum, orbit, magnet, grid, pyramid, columns and advancing wall — bringing the total to fifteen. • Special blocks from level five: splitting, chain, armoured, ghost and timed. • Sound effects, with their own volume control. • All progress from the previous version carries over automatically.