Mochi Rails

About Mochi Rails

Mochi Rails is a one-tap routing puzzle. A candy hillside is laced with a branching railway: a single feed track at the top splits again and again down a lattice of junctions, and at the bottom sits a row of station houses, each one a different candy colour with a little face. Trolleys roll out of the top all by themselves, each carrying one coloured candy, and they never stop or slow down.

Your only move is to tap a junction. Its lever swings from left to right (or back), and the track it points at lights up while the other dims. Read the colour of the trolley that is coming, look at the path the levers currently spell out, and flip whichever junction sends it home. Because the trolley is always rolling, the junction right underneath it is usually already settled - the flip that actually matters is one or two rows further down, on track it hasn't reached yet. The preview above the feed track shows the next few colours, so you can lay a route before a trolley is even released.

Across the 20 hand-tuned levels the hill grows from a three-row lattice with two candy colours to a seven-row lattice with five, and a new personality joins on a fixed schedule: rusty junctions that need a knock before they will move (level 6), spring-loaded bumpers that flip themselves back after every trolley (level 9), frozen levers that set solid for a couple of seconds once a trolley has passed (level 12), express trolleys that roll fast (level 15) and twin releases that put two trolleys on the hill at the same time (level 18). Level 20 runs all of it at once.

It stays a gentle game. Deliver the level's quota of trolleys to the correct houses to clear it; a trolley into a wrong station makes that house pull a startled face and costs one of your three hearts, and losing all three simply offers the same hill again. Trolleys keep coming forever, so a level can never become unwinnable, and there is no timer or score anywhere. Clear all 20 and Endless mode opens: generated hills that start at the final level's intensity and keep ramping, every mechanic live from the first endless hill, seeded by the level number so no two are laid out the same. Finishing any level always lights up all three stars.

How to play Mochi Rails

1. Watch the top of the hill: a trolley rolls out carrying one coloured candy, and it never stops.
2. Look at the bottom row - each station house is a candy colour with a face. The trolley wants the house that matches it.
3. Tap any junction to flip its lever. The track it points at lights up; the other one dims.
4. Work ahead of the trolley: flip the junctions one or two rows below it, not the one it is about to hit.
5. Check the preview above the feed track for the next colours and lay the route before that trolley is even released.
6. Knock rusty junctions first (one tap frees them, the next flips them) and remember that bumpers spring back after each trolley.
7. Deliver the level's quota of trolleys to the right houses before you lose all three hearts.

Controls

Tips & strategy

• Never flip the junction the trolley is already rolling into - look one or two rows further down, where you still have time.
• Use the preview above the feed track: knowing the next colour lets you set the whole route while the hill is empty.
• Set the hill for the colour that has the most station houses first; the rarer colour usually needs only one flip to peel off.
• After a bumper flips itself back, it is pointing the other way for the NEXT trolley too - fold that into your plan instead of re-flipping in a panic.
• Knock the rust off a junction early, during a quiet moment, so it is a one-tap lever when it actually matters.
• Don't flip a frozen junction right after a trolley crosses it; wait for the frost to fade or route around it entirely.
• With twin trolleys on the hill, route the express one first - it gives you less time, and the slow one can usually still be caught further down.
• A wrong delivery only costs a heart, never the run, so commit to a route rather than dithering between two.

Game features

• One tap, one idea: every junction is a lever, and flipping it is the entire control scheme.
• A branching Galton-style lattice you can read at a glance - the live track lights up, the unused one dims.
• Trolleys that never stop, so the game is about working ahead rather than reacting.
• A next-up preview above the feed track, so a calm player is always routing a trolley that hasn't been released yet.
• Station houses with faces that beam on a correct delivery and pull a startled look on a wrong one.
• Junction personalities that each pressure a different thing: rusty (costs a tap), bumper (springs back), frozen (locks after a pass).
• Express trolleys that collapse your planning window and twin releases that turn routing into scheduling.
• 20 hand-tuned levels growing from a 3-row, two-colour hill to a 7-row, five-colour one, with one new mechanic at a time.
• Endless mode past level 20: generated hills that start at the finale's intensity and keep ramping, every mechanic live from the first one.
• Soft failure - three hearts, an endless supply of trolleys, no timer and no score - and three stars for clearing any level, saved in your browser.

The Interesting Switch Is Never the Next One

Mochi Rails looks, for about ten seconds, like the simplest game on the site. A trolley rolls down a hill. Junctions point left or right. Tap one and it flips. Send the pink candy to the pink house. That is genuinely all of it - and then the trolley starts moving faster than your first instinct, and the game quietly reveals what it is really about. The junction directly under the trolley is already decided; by the time you're looking at it, it's too late to think. The flip that matters is two rows further down, on a track the trolley hasn't chosen yet. Rails is a game about working ahead of a thing that will not wait for you.

That is why the whole lattice is on screen at once and why the levers are drawn so boldly. You are not meant to hunt for information - you are meant to read the current shape of the hill in one glance, like a sentence, and see where it currently spells out. Then you change one word. The next-up preview above the feed track exists for exactly this reason: it tells you the colour of the trolley after this one, so a calm player is always laying the route for a trolley that hasn't been released yet. Play like that and the game feels serene. Play reactively and it feels like chasing a bus.

The cast complicates that reading one idea at a time, and each one is a different kind of pressure. A rusty junction costs you a tap - a knock to shake the rust loose before the lever will move - so it taxes your time, which is exactly the resource you're short of. A spring-loaded bumper flips itself back after every trolley rolls over it, so it punishes the assumption that the hill you set up is the hill you'll get. A frozen junction sets solid for a couple of seconds after a trolley passes, which means the wrong moment to flip it is right after the last one went through. Express trolleys simply roll fast, collapsing your planning window. Twin releases put two trolleys of different colours on the hill at once, which is where routing becomes real scheduling: any lever you flip for one is a lever you flipped for the other too.

Nothing is timed and nothing is scored. Deliver the level's quota of trolleys to the right houses and the hill is cleared. A trolley into the wrong station just makes that little house pull a startled face and costs one of three hearts - and because trolleys keep rolling out forever, a level can never become impossible; a bad run only means going again on the exact same hill, which you now know better. Clear all twenty and the endless hills open: bigger lattices, all five candy colours, every mechanic live from the first one, and a fresh layout seeded by the level number each time.