About Gearloom
Gearloom is a free browser engine-builder roguelite dressed as a clockmaker's workshop, and it is the first game in the Weekly Arcade library scored by construction rather than execution. There is no reaction time to master and nothing to dodge: you draft one part from three, place it on a fixed 5x5 grid, and the whole board ticks. What makes it hard is that a part is worth almost nothing on its own. The same Small Cog is worth 4 in the wrong corner and 400 wired between two Ratchets and a Flywheel, and learning to read a board's emerging neighbourhoods - a cluster of Sources feeding one big Converter - is the entire skill. Adjacency is strictly orthogonal, four neighbours, with exactly three Legendary exceptions that say so on their own card, so the graph is always fully knowable and a loss always reads as "I see what I should have wired differently" rather than "that was random". The roster runs to 58 parts across Bronze, Steel, Gold and Platinum tiers - Sources that generate, Modifiers that multiply their neighbours, Converters whose whole output is a formula over what surrounds them, Stabilizers that neutralise the three hazard tiles, and Connectors that reach past simple adjacency into rows, chains and the whole board. Ten Blueprints arrive one round in three as permanent passives. A five-step Training run is permanently available from the menu, the pause screen and Settings, not just on your first visit. Every run submits to a two-axis leaderboard - Torque banked and rounds survived - so out-scoring a deeper run with a better machine is its own bragging right. No downloads, no ads, no in-app purchases, and it works offline once cached.
How to Play Gearloom
Each round you are offered three parts and draft exactly one - the other two vanish, nothing is held. Tap an empty cell on the 5x5 board to place it, permanently. Then tap Run Tick: every part on the board resolves at once and pays out Torque based on what sits orthogonally beside it, lighting up one at a time so you can see which neighbour did the work. Clear the round's quota and the Torque banks into your score; miss it and the run ends immediately. The quota climbs 28% every round, so a board that is merely full loses to a board that is wired.
Gearloom Tips and Strategy
- Build one neighbourhood, not five lonely parts - a Flywheel surrounded by four Sources outproduces the same five parts scattered across the board
- Corner cells have 2 neighbours and edges have 3, marked with bracket icons: spend those weak slots on Test Weight or Mainspring and save the interior for anything that buffs
- Converters are the payoff, not the setup - place Piston and Overdrive Piston last, once you already have three or four Sources touching that cell
- Never draft a Spring without a plan to put an Escapement beside it, and never place the Escapement before the tension has had rounds to build
- A drafted hazard is not a lost round: Oil Can zeroes it, Counterweight flips its penalty into a bonus, and a Diamond-Tipped Drill turns it into +8 forever
- Watch the reveal animation rather than the total - the number each gear pulses is telling you exactly which placement is carrying your board
Gearloom FAQ
Is Gearloom free to play?
Yes. Gearloom is completely free with no ads, no in-app purchases and no download. It runs in any modern browser on phone, tablet or desktop, and works offline once the page has been cached.
What is an engine-builder, and do I need to know the genre?
An engine-builder is a game where you assemble a machine that scores for you, rather than scoring directly yourself. You do not need prior experience: rounds 1 and 2 draw only from four safe parts, and a five-step Training run is available permanently from the main menu, the pause overlay and Settings.
How does adjacency work in Gearloom?
Adjacency is orthogonal only - up, down, left and right. Diagonals never count unless a part's own text says so, and only three of the 58 parts do. Corner cells have 2 neighbours, edge cells have 3 and interior cells have 4, and every cell with fewer than four is marked with a bracket icon so you can see the weak slots before you commit to one.
Is Gearloom a card game or a slot game?
Neither. There is no deck, no draw pile, no hand and no reels. Three parts are offered, you take one and the other two are discarded immediately - nothing is ever held. What gets scored is a board, and output is measured in Torque with a gear icon, never coins.
What is a good score in Gearloom?
An unplanned board usually fails around round 6 or 7 for roughly 100 Torque. Some deliberate pairing gets you to round 9 or 10 and about 275. A properly wired hub-and-spoke build reaches round 14 and over 1,000, and near-optimal play with strong Blueprints can pass round 18 and 3,000 Torque.
Can I undo a placement or move a part later?
No. Placement is permanent, which is what makes each decision matter. The one escape valve is Salvage: once all 25 cells are occupied you may permanently destroy a placed part to free its cell, and the Salvage Rights Blueprint refunds half of what that part last produced.
Does Gearloom work on mobile?
Yes, and it is designed mobile-first. The whole game is single taps - no dragging and no timing - the full board is visible at once with no scrolling or panning, and every cell and card clears the 44px touch-target floor even on a 320px-wide phone.
