Secret Garden
I made a little puzzle game called Secret Garden. It is live now.
Play it at https://match.taggedz.me
Blocks rise from the bottom of a tall garden. You swap two neighbors, match three or more, and keep the stack from filling the top. Bigger shapes leave a little extra magic behind: a beam, a burst, a prism, or a quiet pause in the rise. Chains keep going as pieces fall. If anything sits in the top row too long, the run ends.
There is one mode. You start, you play, you try again. Your personal best stays in your browser.
The gardens cycle as you last: Sunlit Garden, Lantern Pond, then Moonlit Grove, then faster repeats of the same three. Pond has passing showers that speed the rise. Grove gives a short moonlight pause. You can play with a mouse, a finger, a keyboard, or a controller.
Why
This is a personal project. I wanted to start making game sites that do not have advertising, do not collect tracking data, and feel right on a phone and on a desktop.
Most free web games are a waiting room for ads and a pile of scripts watching what you do. Secret Garden is the other way around. The page is the game. There is no account, no nickname, no public scoreboard, and no “please allow cookies.” Playing is free. Your score and settings live on your device. The soundtrack stays off until you tap for it, so the game does not even download music unless you ask.
I also wanted it to be something you can actually play, not a desktop toy that falls apart on a phone. On a wide screen you get the journal, the board, and the field notes. On a phone the board comes first and the extra copy tucks away. Same rules either way.
It is meant to be understandable in about thirty seconds and worth a short session: a few minutes if you are new, longer if you get stubborn about the personal best.
How it plays
- Swap any two neighboring blocks, even if they do not match yet.
- Three in a line clears. Four makes a beam. Five makes a prism. A T or L makes a burst. A two-by-two square makes a time bloom.
- Hold Raise when you want the next row sooner.
- If the top fills, you have three seconds to make room.
There is a How to play button on the page if you want the longer version. Settings has sound, reduced motion, and a way to play your own music file for that visit without uploading it anywhere.
What I am not doing
No ads. No analytics. No accounts. No chat. No payments. Nothing from this game is trying to follow you around the rest of the web.
I am not comparing you to other players. If you beat your own best, the garden remembers it in your browser. That is enough.
Here it is
So, with all that said… here is the garden.
Made for the joy of playing.