Playgridia
Coralbay
Coralbay is a free browser sea-life engine builder — no download, no setup. You do ONE thing a turn: take food from the tide pool, place pearls on your creatures, draw cards, or settle a creature from your hand into the shallows, the reef or the deep. The trick is the chain: every creature you add to a band raises that band's base reward AND lengthens the run of creatures that fire, left to right, when you take its action. Dolphins, seals, seahorses, turtles, octopuses, rays and sharks; three tides, a shared goal at the end of each, and a secret chart of your own. 2–4 players, against bots or with friends.
Turquoise Lagoon
Rules
- 2–4 players; three tides of 9, 7 and 6 turns
- You do only ONE thing a turn: take a band's action, or settle a creature
- SHALLOWS give food · REEF gives pearls · DEEP gives cards
- Taking a band's action triggers its creatures LEFT TO RIGHT — and a band you have filled completely carries the CURRENT into the band below for one more trigger
- Every creature both raises the band's reward and lengthens the chain
- Settling costs food; the 3rd and 4th slots also cost pearls
- Four foods: plankton, kelp, krill and squid
- The tide pool holds six dice and REFILLS at the end of every turn, so it is always full when your turn comes round — one die face is WILD and counts as any food you name
- Power colours: brown (when triggered) · teal (when it settles) · yellow (end of tide) · pink (on a rival's turn)
- Hunters flip a card from the deck; if the creature swimming past is short enough it joins the shoal and is worth 1 point
- At the end of each tide its shared goal is scored by ranking — even last place is not a shut-out
- At setup you keep four things from four cards and four foods, plus one of two secret charts
- Score: creature points + every pearl + every stored food + every card in a shoal + goals + your secret chart
How to play
- You open with four cards and four foods; keep four things in total (cards, food, or a mix)
- Choose one of two secret charts — only that one scores at the end
- On your turn either tap a BAND BANNER or pick a card from your hand and drop it into the glowing slot
- The banner prints what you gain and how many creatures will fire
- When a choice is needed the bottom bar opens: pick a die, a creature or a card — if it asks for a food, the four foods appear in the bar; or hit "Auto" if you are in a hurry
Building the chain
- Stack creatures into the same band: a band of four fires four powers on a single tap
- The two left slots are FREE and fire FIRST — your opening fixes the order for good
- The two right slots cost pearls, but they let you write the end of the chain
- Yellow powers fire for free at the end of every tide; settle one early and it pays three times
- Pink powers bring you food, a card or a pearl on your RIVALS' turns
- If unpayable cards pile up in hand, work the shallows instead of the deep
Where points come from
- Creature points (0–9) + 1 per pearl + 1 per stored food + 1 per card in a shoal
- The three tide goals are scored by ranking, and all three are visible from turn one
- Your secret chart is yours alone and can be worth 5–11 points at the end
- Ties are broken by the food and cards left in your hand
Small secrets
- On an empty cove the REEF action is wasted — with no creature to hold a pearl the reward vanishes
- The OPEN WATER home is wild: it answers every home question, which makes it gold on a secret chart
- Tap a player on the top rail to look at their cove — the eye marks whose cove is on screen, and "↩ My cove" brings you home
- On a rival's turn the board shows THEIR cove and names every step in the strip at the bottom — watch how the chain is built; one tap returns you to your own board
- Filling a band completely works not just that band but the one below it too
Looking for a calm but competitive engine builder?
Coralbay is an ocean-themed engine builder you can play free in the browser: gather food, place pearls on your creatures, draw cards and arrange the sea life you collect across three depth bands. No download, no account required, no box to punch out — open a room, add a bot or invite a friend, and your first dolphin is thirty seconds away.
It keeps the most satisfying moment of the genre intact: take a band's action and every creature in that band fires, one after another, left to right. By the third tide a single tap wakes six creatures in sequence, each with its own sound, and it is the best twenty seconds on the table.
One tap, a long chain
There is exactly one action a turn, which is what makes it easy to play on a phone — but how big that one action gets was decided by the turns before it. That is the whole tension of the game: cash in today, or make the chain longer?
Dozens of different sea creatures, four colours of power, secret charts and shared goals that change every match mean no two games are alike. You also choose the light on the water — turquoise lagoon, sunset or moonlight — and that choice changes both the palette and the music the game composes for itself in the background.
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