Catch the tiles from the belt and make lines of 3 or more of the same colour. The Atari classic (1990), playable free in your browser.
The coloured tiles come down the belt. Move the paddle to catch up to 5 tiles and drop them into the well, forming lines of 3 or more matching tiles (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) to score a Klax! and earn points. If a tile gets past you, you lose a life.
Klax is a puzzle and skill video game developed and published by Atari Games in 1990. Designed by Dave Akers and Mark Stephen Pierce, it was born as an arcade machine at the height of the golden age of arcades and quickly became a phenomenon thanks to its simple-to-learn but fiendishly addictive mechanics, in the wake of Tetris's success.
The concept is as original as it is recognisable: coloured tiles come down a conveyor belt and the player controls a paddle at the bottom with which to catch them before they fall into the void. The paddle can store up to five stacked tiles, which are then dropped into a well of five columns. The goal is to line up three or more tiles of the same colour horizontally, vertically or diagonally to form what the game called a "Klax", making them disappear and scoring points.
What set Klax apart was its system of wave-based objectives: each level posed a different challenge (achieve a specific number of Klaxes, reach a certain score, survive a number of tiles or create diagonal Klaxes), which provided an uncommon variety for the games of the era. In addition, its distinctive sound effects and digitised voice were etched into the memory of an entire generation.
After triumphing in the arcades, Klax was ported to virtually every home platform of its time: Atari Lynx, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Game Boy, Sega Master System and Mega Drive/Genesis, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and many more. That ubiquity made it one of the best-known puzzles of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and over time it has been re-released in retro compilations and on modern platforms.
The charm of Klax lies in the constant tension between catching, stacking and placing under time pressure: the further you progress, the faster the belt runs and the harder it becomes to chain Klaxes without letting a single tile escape. It is a game of quick decisions and planning, where a good chain of combinations can send your score soaring. That mix of strategy and reflexes is what has kept its memory alive more than three decades later.
This page is a tribute to that classic with an original, custom implementation, designed to enjoy the spirit of the game directly in your browser. "Klax" is a trademark of its respective owners; this version is neither affiliated with nor sponsored by them.
