♞ Puzzlehouse — Rules & FAQ
Puzzlehouse is the puzzle roguelike: solving a tactic is still the core act, but it's wrapped in a run. You climb a track of puzzle nodes — tactic, camp, boss — with 3 hearts (a wrong move costs one), a combo that grows as you chain solves, and mutations you draft as you climb. It's the puzzle cousin of Roguehouse (Roguehouse = play whole games; Puzzlehouse = solve tactics).
No questions match — clear the filter to see them all.
How a run works
Q. What is a run?
A run is a branching map of puzzle nodes: several tactic puzzles, a camp in the middle, and a boss. At most steps you choose which node to take next — the route is part of the strategy. Each step is a little harder than the last: the run opens below your level as a warm-up and climbs past it. ⚠️ The boss is a milestone, not a finish line: beat it and a fresh block of stages starts, harder again. A run ends when your hearts do — see How long is a run? below.
Q. How do I know if a node is hard or easy?
Every node tells you before you commit. Each choice card shows its difficulty — the puzzle rating plus a plain band relative to your level: Easy, Fair, Hard or Brutal. So taking the risky path is always a decision you make with open eyes, never a surprise. (If a node's difficulty isn't known, the card simply shows nothing rather than guessing a number.)
Q. What is the Tier picker?
If you've bought the Expert tier in your empire's shop, a Tier choice appears on this page. Expert starts the whole run about 150 Elo harder and collects 50% more pieces. It's per-run and entirely optional — Standard is unchanged and always available, so this adds a harder option rather than taking anything away. If you don't own it, the picker simply isn't shown.
Q. Why does the run home show an earning rate?
Because it's the moment it can still change your mind. Pieces are paid only for puzzles that are new to you, and your review backlog scales the payout: history clear earns a bonus ×1.25, each puzzle you owe a review on trims 5% off (down to ×0.40). Clearing your reviews first is therefore both the best-paying and the best-learning move — the line on this page is just telling you which you're currently on.
Q. What kinds of node are there?
Tactic — an ordinary puzzle at the step's difficulty. Elite — a harder puzzle that scores double: the classic risk-for-reward pick. Themed — a tactic drawn from one motif (a Fork lane, a Back-rank lane), so a branch can also choose what you drill. Event — a short, no-chess choice (rest and heal, or press on for points; risk a heart for a mutation — never on your last heart). Camp — a rest that heals a heart. Shop — spend ♠ spades mid-run (see below). Boss — the final puzzle; beat it to clear the run.
Q. What is the Shop node?
Once per run you reach a ♠ Shop. Unlike the boosts you buy before a run, here you're spending with the run already in play — you know your hearts, your combo and what's left, so the decision is real: patch up now, or save the spades for the boss? The stock is Patch up (restore a heart), Insurance (your next miss keeps the combo), Buy the point (skip the next node — never the boss) and Hire a second (draft a mutation on the spot). Anything that can't help you right now simply isn't offered, and you can always walk past without spending.
Q. Where do spades come from?
From clearing runs, and from your empire's buildings, which pay ♠ over time. That's the loop: solve puzzles → collect pieces → build the business → the business pays spades → spades make your next run stronger. The empire is on the Puzzlehouse home, below the Start button; it is all explained under Your empire further down this page.
Q. What are mutations, and how do I get one?
A mutation is a small run-long modifier, the same idea as Roguehouse's. When you start a run you are dealt three mutation cards and pick one — the same draft Roguehouse opens with — and then another every 5 stages you clear, so a pick is an event rather than a formality. Some events and the mid-run shop can hand you one too. Each card shows its numbers inline and a Details › tap that explains exactly what it does before you commit — plus its archetype (Risk or Insight) and its rarity (common · uncommon · rare — rarer cards are drawn less often and may be stronger), so you choose with your eyes open. Examples: Aggressor (solves score double but a miss costs two hearts), Steady (an extra heart), Downhill (the whole run runs easier). The run also rolls one extra twist at the start. Nothing here is a free win: each card is held to a power budget for its rarity, and the combined effect of everything you hold is capped.
How long is a run?
Q. Does a run ever end on its own?
As long as you can keep it alive. A run has no fixed end: clear a block of stages and a boss, and another block starts, a little harder each time. It ends when your hearts do. So the score that matters is how many stages you cleared — your best is remembered and shown on your profile.
Q. Where do I find it?
From the Home page's Puzzlehouse tile, or the games menu in the navigation bar. Puzzlehouse is its own game — separate from the plain Puzzles trainer (Standard and Crazyhouse), where you can still practise single puzzles with filters and spaced repetition.
Q. Can I pick a theme for the run?
Yes. Before you start, choose a theme (Any tactic by default, or a motif like Fork, Pin, Sacrifice or Back-rank). A themed run serves every node from that motif, so you can drill one pattern — a "Fork run", a "Back-rank floor". If a motif runs thin at your difficulty, the run quietly falls back to a normal tactic for that node so it never stalls. The current motif shows as a small chip on the run screen.
Hearts & combo
Q. What happens when I get one wrong?
You lose a heart. You start with 3; at zero the run ends. A wrong move also resets your combo.
Q. Can a choice on the map end my run?
No. A run only ends on the board. An event that costs a heart — the Wager's Risk a heart — is offered while you can survive it and is greyed out on your last heart, with the reason shown. The gamble is real at two hearts or more; it is never a button that ends the run.
Q. What's the combo?
Every solve in a row raises a combo multiplier that boosts your score. Miss one and the combo resets to zero — so a clean chain is worth chasing.
The camp
Q. What is the camp?
Partway through the run you reach a camp: a rest that heals one heart. (It used to offer its own separate draft — that is gone: mutations are the run's one kind of modifier now, and you draft them after every cleared stage instead.)
Q. Can a run still bend my piece collecting?
Yes — through a mutation. Collector makes every piece you collect worth double for the rest of the run. Every puzzle you solve drops that board's pieces into your Vault, so Collector is the card to take when you are farming what your empire needs.
The boss
The last node is a tougher boss puzzle. Beat it to clear the run and earn the run reward. Miss it and you can try again while you still have hearts.
Rating & spaced repetition
Q. Does Puzzlehouse change my rating?
No — a run is unrated. It reads your Standard puzzle rating to pick a fair starting difficulty, but it never changes it.
Q. What about the puzzles I keep getting wrong?
Spaced repetition lives inside the run: puzzles you've missed can come back as a review node, so you re-face your weak spots as part of playing — no separate list to grind.
What happened to artifacts?
Q. There used to be an Artifacts page. Where did it go?
Artifacts were removed. They were permanent upgrades you bought once and then had forever, which sat awkwardly between the two things Puzzlehouse already has: the estate you build up over time, and the mutations you draft fresh each run. Their actual effects were good, so they did not disappear — they are mutations now: Steady gives the extra heart, Warm-Up opens the run holding one bonus card, and Archivist puts one more card on the table at every draft. You meet them in the draft instead of buying them, which means every run is shaped by what you are dealt rather than by how long you have been playing.
Q. Do mutations change my score?
No — not any more. Mutations used to say things like "score 25% more", which changed the number you were shown after the fact rather than the game you actually played. Every card now changes how the run plays: an extra heart, an easier or harder difficulty ramp, a power in hand, a wider draft, or the kind of puzzle you face. If a card touches difficulty at all it moves it by at least 50 Elo, so you can feel it.
Q. Do artifacts gate any puzzles?
No. Every puzzle stays free to play at any time — artifacts only change how a run feels, never what you can reach.
Your empire
The empire is Puzzlehouse's meta-layer — the same thing the Foundry is to Roguehouse. It lives at the foot of the Puzzlehouse home, under the Start button: every puzzle you beat drops that board's pieces into your Vault, and you spend those pieces on buildings that grow a chess business.
Q. How do I earn pieces?
Solve puzzles — in any mode (the trainer, Puzzlehouse, Review…). Each solve adds the non-king pieces on that board to your hoard. Harder puzzles pay more; there's a daily cap so grinding easy puzzles isn't the best strategy.
Q. Which pieces?
The five types — ♟ pawns, ♞ knights, ♝ bishops, ♜ rooks, ♛ queens. Pawns are common, queens rare (rarity follows value). Kings aren't collected.
Q. Which puzzles pay pieces?
Only puzzles that are new to you. Re-solving one you've already beaten is always welcome — it just doesn't pay again. That keeps the hoard an honest record of what you've actually beaten, rather than a reward for grinding the same easy position.
Q. What is my "rate"?
Your review backlog sets how much a new puzzle pays. With your history clear you earn at the bonus rate (×1.25). Each puzzle you owe a review on trims 5% off that, down to a floor of ×0.40 — a slump, never a lockout, and clearing the backlog always lifts you straight back to the bonus. The point isn't to nag you: reviewing what you half-remember is the single most effective way to actually improve, so the economy makes the best way to learn also the best way to earn — review first, then new material.
The business
Spend piece-mixes to buy buildings — eight tiers from the Pawn Shop up to the Championship Site. Buildings generate a slow passive income that works while you're away (capped at 8 hours), but playing is the main way to earn. Buy one at a time or use ×5 / MAX.
Q. What is the money actually FOR?
Three things. Perks: owning buildings grants small permanent bonuses inside the games — extra hearts, a wider mutation draft, more collect, more XP (each is capped, so a big empire never makes a puzzle easy). The Monument: the World Chess Capital is a one-off, very expensive build that completes your empire — the long-term goal. Rank: your empire's value carries a title, from Street Hustler up to Chess Capital.
Q. Why did a building's income suddenly jump?
Copy-count thresholds: the 10th, 25th and 50th copy of a building each double that building's output. The shop row shows the multiplier you've earned and the next target.
Q. What do milestones do?
Lifetime collection milestones (1,000 pawns collected, 25 queens…) each add +1% permanent income, up to +25%.
Q. What does Graduate (prestige) reset?
It resets your buildings for a permanent income multiplier. You keep your Vault, your milestone bonuses, your endowments and the Monument — only the buildings go.
Q. What is an Endowment?
When you graduate you may also endow the class — spend ♠ for an extra permanent multiplier on top of the free one graduating already gives. Each endowment adds +0.25× forever and survives every future graduation. Each one costs 60% more than the last, so there is always a next one to save for and no amount of spades ever buys out the ladder. Graduating itself is always free — if you can't afford an endowment you graduate exactly as before; the panel just also tells you what the next one would cost, so you can decide whether to bank for it first. That choice is the point.
Spending ♠ — Estate, Boosts, Unlocks
Three shops, behind the Estate / Boosts / Unlocks tabs on the Puzzlehouse home.
Estate upgrades are the main one, and the only repeatable one. Each has levels, each level costs half again as much as the last, and each gives a little less than the last — so there is always something worth saving for, but no amount of spending breaks the game. There are four: Scholarship (every solve drops more material), Endowment (your estate pays more per day), Patronage (collect further past the daily cap) and Tutelage (Puzzlehouse runs pay more spades). Buying these is genuinely worth it — a player who spends finishes the whole game roughly 1.4× faster than one who hoards.
Boosts are bought on the home and used on your next run: an extra heart, a free first miss (Second Wind), or a 50% bigger haul of pieces. You can arm one at a time, and it's used up by one run — so a boost softens a run, it never wins it for you. (The in-run shop above is the other half of that: mid-run spending, under pressure, is where the real decisions are.)
Q. What are Unlocks?
Permanent purchases, unlike boosts. There is currently one: the Expert tier, which starts your runs about 150 Elo harder and collects 50% more. It's opt-in per run — buying it adds a choice on the run home, it never forces you into a harder game, and Standard stays exactly as it was.
Q. Will I ever run out of things to buy?
No — that's what the Estate tab is for. Boosts and Unlocks are a fixed catalogue you eventually own outright, but estate upgrade prices keep climbing, so a rich empire always has somewhere to put its spades. Between them the four ladders hold more spades than a complete play-through earns, which means which ones you level is a real choice, not a checklist.
Q. Is any puzzle locked behind the economy?
No — and none ever will be. Every puzzle in the app is playable free, at any time. The economy decides whether a solve pays, never whether you can play. In particular the standard puzzles come from Lichess — free, open data we did not create — and gating those would be charging you for someone else's gift. What spades buy is only what we built ourselves: our own generated Crazyhouse puzzles, cosmetics, the estate, and our designed mutations and difficulty tiers.
Full reference pages
Want the details of a specific modifier? The 🧬 Mutations catalogue lists every card the run draft can deal, each with a full explanation of what it does and how to use it.