Beacon
Word tiles light up one at a time. Tap them back in the order they lit; on the harder bands the tiles shuffle first.
- Four levels: Easy to Extra Hard
How Beacon Works
The board is a grid of cards, each with a word and a drawing: a bear, a river, a clover, the moon. After you press Start, a short run of them lights up one at a time, each with its own tone. Then it is your turn: tap the same words in the same order.
On Medium and above the cards move to new places before your turn, so you have to remember the words themselves, not where they were. On Easy they stay put.
A game is three rounds, and each round is a new set of words. A wrong tap costs a heart and play moves on to the next word, so one slip never ends the round. Each word is worth a point: half for naming a word that was in the round, half for putting it in the right place.
The Rules
- 1
Watch the Words
The word tiles light up one by one. Say them to yourself as a short phrase, in the order they lit.
- 2
They Shuffle
On Medium and above the tiles move when your turn begins, so remember the words, not the spots. On Easy they stay where they are.
- 3
Tap Them Back
Tap the words in the same order. Each round is a fresh set of words, not a longer version of the last one.
- 4
A Wrong Tap Costs a Heart
A word tapped in the wrong place costs a heart, and play carries on to the next word. Your hearts last the whole game, not one round, and if the last one goes mid-round, the round still finishes first. Hearts never run out in the daily set.
- 5
Half and Half
A word is worth a point: half for naming one that was in the sequence, half for putting it in the right place.
Where Beacon Comes From
Beacon is a memory game Dayzle made. It starts from the familiar repeat-the-sequence game, where lights come on in order and you copy them, and changes three things: the tiles carry words, from Medium up they shuffle before your turn, and a game is three separate rounds of fresh words instead of one sequence that grows until you slip. A word you remembered but put in the wrong place still scores half a point.
The name comes from hilltop signal fires, lit one after another to carry a message a long way. In the ninth century the Byzantine Empire ran a line of them about 720 km across Asia Minor, from the border fortress of Loulon to Constantinople, and a message could cover the whole line within an hour.
How the Levels Differ
Easy has 9 tiles and 3 rounds of 3 words, and the tiles stay where they are: 9 words to recall in a game. Medium has 12 tiles, rounds of 3, 4 and 4, and the tiles shuffle before you answer: 11 words. Hard has 18 tiles and rounds of 4, 5 and 6: 15 words. Extra Hard has 24 tiles and rounds of 5, 6 and 7: 18 words.
The words light at the same pace on every band. The number of words in a round is what makes a band harder; the extra tiles give you more of the board to search when you answer.
How a board gets harder.
There is nothing to work out in Beacon, only a sequence to hold and play back, so its hint outlines the tile with the next word in the order and leaves the tap to you. A harder band asks you to hold more: rounds of 3 words on Easy and up to 7 on Extra Hard, 9 to 18 words a game, and from Medium up the shuffle means you have to remember words, not places.
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