Build this
A beloved 1990 puzzle classic, rebuilt for one thumb. Atoms lie scattered across a walled board, and a target molecule floats above it; your job is to slide the atoms together until they snap into that exact shape. The catch — and the whole soul of the game — is that atoms don't step, they SLIDE. Push one and it skates across the floor without stopping until it slams into a wall, the board's edge, or another atom. So you don't move atoms so much as aim them, building little walls out of the atoms themselves to make the next one stop exactly where you need it. It is pure spatial planning with no luck and no timer: every level is guaranteed solvable, and the only question is whether you can see the path. Solve one molecule and a fresh, harder one appears — your score is how many you assemble in a row before the diagram outwits you.
Above the board you see the target molecule — the exact shape you must build from the scattered atoms. On the board, walls are the dark blocks and atoms are the coloured discs (each letter is an element). You start over again if you want with New; Reset puts the current level's atoms back where they began.
Tap one of your atoms to select it. Glowing arrows appear on the squares it can slide to — tap an arrow to send it that way. An atom does NOT move one square: it slides in a straight line and only stops when the next square is a wall, the board's edge, or another atom. There is no way to stop it partway, so the trick is to use walls and other atoms as buffers.
The level is solved the moment the atoms form the target molecule's shape, anywhere on the board and in any position — only the relative arrangement matters, not where on the board it sits. There is no rotation: the molecule must point the same way as the diagram.
Every level is generated to be solvable, and each one you finish is replaced by a new, harder molecule on a bigger or busier board. Your score is your streak — how many molecules you assemble in a row. Tap Save on the solved screen to send your streak to the Hall of Fame.
Build with walls, not wishes. Because a sliding atom only ever stops against something solid, you can almost never park an atom in the open middle of the board — it will skate straight past the spot you wanted. Look first at where the existing walls and the board edges are, because those are the only places an atom can come to rest on its own. The target molecule has to be assembled tucked against that scenery.
Atoms are walls too. The single most important idea in Atomix is that a stopped atom becomes a blocker for the others. To stop an atom in mid-board, you first slide a different atom into place as a buffer, then slide the next one until it bumps that buffer. Almost every solution is a little chain of atoms catching each other, so think about the ORDER you place them as much as the moves themselves.
Work backward from the picture. It often helps to imagine the finished molecule sitting in a likely corner or against a wall, then ask which atom must arrive last, where it would have to come from, and what has to already be in place to stop it. Solving the final position first and reasoning backward beats shoving atoms around hoping they line up.
Use Reset without shame. The board has no timer and no penalty for thinking, so when a level tangles, Reset puts every atom back and lets you try a cleaner order. A single misplaced atom early can wall off the very square you needed later, and it is usually faster to restart the plan than to dig out of it.