How to play Pixel Hatch: rules, controls and tips

How do you play Pixel Hatch?

The board is a pixel picture inside a dark conveyor belt. Unpainted pixels show a pale version of their final colour, so you can always see what is still needed. Your painters wait in two to four columns beside the board.

1. 1Step 1: Tap the painter at the front of a column. It hops onto the belt at the yellow start pad. The number on a painter shows how much paint it carries.
2. 2Step 2: The painter rides once around the picture. At every row and column it looks inward and paints the first unpainted pixel in its line of sight, but only if that pixel is its colour. Painted pixels stop blocking the view.
3. 3Step 3: A painter that runs out of paint pops off the belt. One that still has paint after its loop sits on the bench. Tap a bench painter to send it round again.
4. 4Step 4: Paint every pixel to hatch the picture and win the level. If a painter comes back to a full bench, the level ends instead.

Why does the bench matter so much?

The bench has five seats, and it is the only thing that can make you lose. A painter sent too early, while its pixels are still hidden behind other colours, will finish its loop with paint left over and take a seat. Do that a few times and the bench fills. Your stars also depend on it: the more seats that were still free at the busiest moment of the level, the more stars you get. So a clean level is less about speed and more about sending each painter when it can actually reach its colour. A violet coach OvO sits by the bench and cheers you on as the picture fills, and it looks worried when the seats run low.

Tips for Pixel Hatch

Before you tap, look at the edge of the picture. Only pixels that a painter can see from the belt get painted, so send the colours that are on the outside first and save the ones buried in the middle. Watch the numbers: a painter carrying a lot of paint is more likely to come back to the bench, so send it when much of its colour is visible. Several painters can ride the belt at once, which is handy when two colours sit side by side. If a level goes wrong, Restart is free. Hint lights up a good next painter and +Seat adds one more bench seat, both for OvO tokens. Turn on Shapes in Settings if you want a symbol on every colour.

What changes in later levels?

The first levels are small pictures like a heart, a star and an egg. Pictures grow from 8 by 8 pixels up to 16 by 16 and mix simple motifs with OvO portraits, and some levels fill the background with colour, which makes lines of sight harder. From level 30, painters further back in a column can be mystery painters that only show their colour when they reach the front. Every tenth level is a hard one, and every fifth is a gentler breather.

Is Pixel Hatch free and can you play it on a phone?

Yes. Pixel Hatch has 200 levels and the first 40 are free, with the optional OvO Pass unlocking the rest. There is also a daily puzzle. It runs in the browser on phones, tablets and computers and in the OvO.games app, and it is made for holding a phone upright. If you sign in, your progress follows you from one device to the next.

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