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Mochi Rings
Rebuild a tower of candy rings on the star-marked goal peg, lifting them one at a time and never letting a fat ring rest on a skinny one.
About Mochi Rings
Mochi Rings is a pastel Tower of Hanoi puzzle. Glossy candy posts rise from a single base bar, and a stack of donut-shaped rings starts piled largest-at-the-bottom on one of them. The peg you are aiming for wears a soft pulsing halo on the floor and a little star bobbing over its top — a wordless 'put them here' cue that fades away the moment the last ring lands. Your task is to carry the whole tower across to that goal peg.
Only two rules govern every move, and they are the heart of Hanoi: you may lift only the top ring of a peg, one ring at a time, and you may never set a larger ring on top of a smaller one. Tap a peg and its top ring floats up and hovers, gently bobbing; the pegs it can legally land on light up with a pulsing outline so you are never guessing. Tap a glowing peg to drop it (each placement chimes — a smaller ring pings higher, a fat one thunks lower), or try an illegal stack and the ring bounces back with a buzz and a little shake.
There are 20 hand-built levels grouped into five candy worlds, four levels each: Berry, Citrus, Mint, Ocean, and Galaxy. The ring count climbs as you go — three rings in Berry, four in Citrus, five in Mint, and from Ocean onward a fourth peg slides in to keep the taller five-, six-, and seven-ring towers manageable. Each world has its own colour palette and gradient sky, and the source and goal pegs shuffle around between levels so you cannot just memorise one sequence of moves.
Clear all 20 and Endless mode opens up: an unbroken run of generated four-peg towers that begins at the seven-ring difficulty of the final Galaxy level and ramps from there (climbing toward nine rings as you push deeper), cycling back through the five world themes. Because every board is a genuine Tower of Hanoi position — rings stacked on a source peg, a different goal peg — it is mathematically guaranteed to be solvable and never starts already finished. A one-tap Undo and a Restart let you experiment without fear, there is no move limit and no timer, and finishing any level lights up all three stars.
How to play Mochi Rings
- Open the level grid and pick a world (Berry, Citrus, Mint, Ocean, or Galaxy), or choose Endless once the 20 curated levels are done.
- Find the goal peg — it has the glowing floor halo and the star hovering above it — that is where the whole tower needs to end up.
- Tap the peg holding the tower to lift its top ring; it rises and hovers while every peg it can legally land on pulses.
- Tap one of the pulsing pegs to drop the ring (or press and drag it straight across); tap the same peg again to set the ring back down.
- Keep shuttling rings one at a time, parking smaller ones on a spare peg so you can free the bigger ones beneath them.
- When all the rings are stacked on the goal peg the star vanishes, you earn three stars, and Next carries you to the following puzzle.
Controls
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Tap a peg | Lift its top ring so it hovers, ready to place |
| Tap a glowing peg | Drop the hovering ring there (only legal pegs glow) |
| Tap the source peg again | Set the lifted ring back down (cancel) |
| Press and drag | Pick up a ring and release it onto another peg |
| Z or Backspace | Undo your last move |
| R | Restart the level from its starting stack |
| Space or Enter | Jump to the next puzzle from the win card |
| Settings (gear) | Sound toggle, level select, Undo, and Restart |
Tips & strategy
- Plan around the biggest ring: it can only move once every smaller ring is off it and out of its way, so always leave the goal peg clear for it to arrive first.
- Treat the spare peg (and the fourth peg that appears from Ocean onward) as a parking lot — shuffle the small rings there to expose the heavy one underneath.
- There is a repeating rhythm: to relocate a tower, move the upper rings to the helper peg, slide the bottom ring across, then rebuild the upper rings on top of it.
- The pulsing outlines show every legal drop while a ring hovers, so let them guide you instead of risking a buzz from an illegal stack.
- Undo is free and unlimited — back up the instant a move feels wrong rather than restarting the whole level.
- The drop chime is a hint: a higher ping means you just placed a small ring, a low thunk means a big one, which helps you track the stack without staring at it.
- If a six- or seven-ring tower looks overwhelming, Restart and solve it slowly once; the same move pattern repeats, so the next attempt feels routine.
- In Endless the goal peg moves around each round, so check for the halo and star before you start planning rather than assuming it is the far-right peg.
Game features
- A candy-coated Tower of Hanoi: glossy donut rings, glowing pegs, hue-jittered colours, and a star cue marking the goal.
- 20 hand-tuned levels across five themed worlds — Berry, Citrus, Mint, Ocean, and Galaxy — four levels apiece.
- A difficulty dial built on ring count: three rings in Berry up to seven by Galaxy, with source and goal pegs reshuffled each level.
- A fourth peg that arrives from the Ocean world onward to keep the taller towers fair.
- Endless mode that begins at the final level's seven-ring challenge and ramps toward nine-ring towers, cycling the world themes.
- Tap-to-lift, tap-to-drop controls a young child can grasp, with press-and-drag as an alternative and only legal pegs lit up.
- Unlimited one-tap Undo, a Restart, no move limit and no timer — every board is guaranteed solvable so you can never get truly stuck.
- A level-select grid that remembers which worlds you have unlocked and your stars, saved in your browser.
- Synthesized sound: a lift blip, rank-pitched drop chimes, a buzz on illegal moves, and a five-note victory arpeggio, all with a mute toggle.
- Three stars for clearing any level — the celebration is for finishing, not for speed or move count.
Game details
- Title
- Mochi Rings
- Genre
- Puzzle
- Players
- 1 player
- Controls
- Tap a peg to lift its top ring, tap another peg to drop it (mouse or touch); Z undoes, R restarts
- Platforms
- Web browser, Android, iOS (no download)
- Developer
- Anime Mochi
- Released
- 2026
- Last updated
- June 2026
- Price
- Free to play
Frequently asked questions
What is the one rule I keep breaking?
You can never place a larger ring on top of a smaller one — rings always go smallest-on-largest. If you try, the ring bounces back to where it was with a buzz and a shake, and nothing is lost. Only the top ring of any peg can be picked up, and only one ring moves at a time.
How do I know which peg is the goal?
The goal peg has a glowing halo on the floor beneath it and a little star bobbing above its top. Move the entire tower onto that peg to win; the star disappears once the last ring is in place. The counter at the top of the screen shows how many of the rings have made it home, like 2/5.
What is the fewest moves a level can be solved in?
On the three-peg worlds (Berry, Citrus, Mint) a tower of N rings needs at least 2 to the power N minus 1 moves done perfectly — so 3 rings take 7 moves, 4 rings take 15, and 5 rings take 31. Mochi Rings never enforces that minimum and never counts your moves, so going over par costs you nothing; clearing the level always lights up all three stars.
Why does the four-peg world feel so different to solve?
From Ocean onward a fourth peg is added, and that extra parking spot lets you split a tall tower into two smaller piles and shuttle them across far more cheaply than the strict three-peg back-and-forth. The classic 'move the top half, slide the big ring, rebuild' rhythm still works, but with two helper pegs you have real choices about where to stash rings — which is why a six- or seven-ring board stays manageable instead of punishing.
At what ring counts do the worlds get harder?
The dial is ring count: Berry starts at 3 rings, Citrus 4, Mint 5, Ocean 5 then 6, and Galaxy 6 then 7. The source and goal pegs are also shuffled around between levels, so you can't memorise one fixed sequence of taps and reuse it.
Can a Mochi Rings level ever be impossible?
No — and that is by design, not luck. Every board is a genuine Tower of Hanoi position: all the rings start stacked largest-at-the-bottom on one peg, with a different peg as the goal, which is always solvable and never already finished. The game even validates each generated puzzle before showing it. If you tangle yourself, tap Undo to step back one move at a time (it is unlimited and free) or Restart to reset the stack and try a cleaner route, so you can experiment without ever painting yourself into a corner.
My device only shows three pegs but a guide mentions four — why?
The number of pegs is part of the difficulty, not a setting. Worlds 1 to 3 give you three pegs to keep the smaller towers simple; the fourth peg only appears once you reach Ocean and the towers grow to five rings and up. If you are seeing three pegs you are simply still in an early world.
If you like Mochi Rings
About the developer
Anime Mochi is a small independent studio making free, original browser games by hand in HTML5, JavaScript, and Canvas.
