Stone Temple

Overview

Stone Temple is an orb-chain shooter played on a spiral groove carved into a sandstone floor. A chain of carved orbs enters at the outer rim and rolls steadily toward the pit at the centre of the temple; if the head of the chain reaches the pit, the pit swallows the chain and you lose one of your three lives. From the idol in the middle you fire orbs into the chain, and any group of three or more touching orbs of the same colour shatters and scores. The twist that rewards precision is magnetism: when a gap opens in the chain and the colours on both sides match, the detached front segment slides backward to rejoin, and if that reunion makes a group of three it pops too, chaining your combo multiplier higher. Gold-ringed relic orbs appear in the chain — the hourglass slows everything for six seconds, the spiral rolls the chain backward. Ten tracks, each a different spiral with more orbs, higher speed and extra colours, stand between you and a saved temple. A clear pays a level bonus and your best score persists.

How to Play

Press Start Expedition. Aim the idol with the Left and Right arrows or by moving the mouse, and fire with Space, Enter, or a click or tap on the board. The loaded orb sits at the idol's mouth and the next one sits below it; press Up or Down, tap the idol, or hit the Swap button to trade them. A dashed guide line shows the flight path. P pauses, R restarts the run, and touch devices get Aim and Swap buttons plus tap-to-fire. The orb counter in the HUD shows how many orbs remain on the current track. Watch the pit glow red when the chain head gets close — that is your warning to stop building score and start cutting the chain anywhere you can.

Tips & Strategy

Shoot into gaps you have already opened rather than always at the head: every removal lets matching colours slam back together, and pull-back matches cost you nothing while feeding the combo multiplier. Learn to read the two orbs you are holding — the loaded and the next — and swap aggressively, because firing a useless colour into the chain makes the chain longer and the track shorter. Aim for long single-colour runs, since groups beyond three pay a flat bonus per extra orb, and a five-orb pop with a combo running is worth more than two separate triples. When a relic orb shows up, decide before firing whether you need time or space: breaking the hourglass early, while the chain is still short, wastes most of its six seconds. On the wobble tracks the groove bends unevenly, so lead your shots slightly and use the dashed guide to judge where the chain will be, not where it is.

What Makes It Distinct

Unlike most orb-chain games that send the chain along a fixed open channel, Stone Temple wraps its tracks into tight spirals around the shooter, so the same turret that fires your orbs also blocks sight lines — the best shot at a segment often exists for only a second as it winds past. The pull-back magnetism means a single insertion can cascade through three or four reconnections, which turns defensive play into combo hunting the moment you learn to see it.