Published by Kestrel Publishing · Version 1.0 ·
iOS 15 and later, Android 8.0 and later · Portrait
(com.kestrelpublishing.rattlecan)
A shelf of drink cans, eight columns wide and twelve rows tall, in four colours. Tap a can and a ball knocks it off, taking the group of matching cans it belongs to with it. Everything above the gap falls into it, and fresh cans feed in from above.
Nothing on the shelf ever clears itself. There are no cascades and no chain reactions, so every can that leaves does so because you shot it. A big group is something you build on purpose.
Score is the size of the group you take, squared. Seven cans in one shot are worth 490; the same seven taken one at a time are worth 70. Let a column stack up to the rail at the top of the shelf and the run is over.
Tap any can on the shelf. The shot never misses — there is no aiming, no reticle and no drift. The can you tapped goes, and every can of the same colour joined to it goes at the same time. How those cans are joined is what separates the three games, and it is explained under The three games below.
Cans above a gap drop straight down into it. That is the whole puzzle: what you take decides what falls, and what falls builds the group you take next. Cans never move sideways, so a column only changes when something is removed from it.
before the shot after the shot
┌─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┐ ┌─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┐
5 │R│Y│B│G│R│Y│B│G│ 5 │R│Y│G│G│R│Y│B│G│
4 │Y│G│R│B│Y│G│R│B│ 4 │Y│G│R│B│Y│G│R│B│
3 │B│R│Y│R│B│R│Y│R│ ───► 3 │B│R│B│R│B│R│Y│R│
2 │G│B│Y│Y│G│B│G│Y│ 2 │G│B│R│Y│G│B│G│Y│
1 │R│Y│G│Y│R│Y│B│G│ 1 │R│Y│Y│Y│R│Y│B│G│
0 │Y│B│G│R│Y│B│R│Y│ 0 │Y│B│Y│R│Y│B│R│Y│
└─┴─┴─┴─┴─┴─┴─┴─┘ └─┴─┴─┴─┴─┴─┴─┴─┘
▲ tap the lowest green
The lowest green has no matching can beside it, so in LINES the tap takes its column run — two cans. Column three drops by two and two fresh cans feed in on top of it. Every other column stays exactly where it was.
New cans arrive from above and land in the shortest columns first, so the shelf never spikes unfairly in one place. In LINES and SWEEP the feed is tied to your shots — the shelf only moves when you do, so you can think for as long as you like. In FREE FALL it runs on a clock instead.
How much comes back roughly matches what you just cleared, between a floor and a cap: a shot that takes one can still feeds the floor, and a shot that takes a dozen feeds no more than the cap. Both the floor and the cap creep upward as a run goes on, so every run eventually ends. That is the arc, not a difficulty spike.
The row at the top of the shelf is the rail. The row of cans sitting above it is a preview of what is coming next in each column. Let any single column stack all the way up to the rail and the run is over — that is the only way to lose in any of the three games.
All three are endless score chases on the same shelf, with the same specials and the same scoring. What changes is the shape a tap takes off the shelf, and what puts you under pressure.
| Game | A tap takes | The pressure | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| LINES | The row of that colour running through the can you hit; where a can has no partner beside it, its column instead | Your own shots feed the shelf | Deliberate, unhurried play |
| SWEEP | The whole connected blob of that colour, whatever shape it is | Your own shots, but the shelf refills faster to match | Big takes and big numbers |
| FREE FALL | The same as LINES | A clock that never stops speeding up | Nerve, and a ladder to climb |
The row run wins where there is one. Tap a red can with reds beside it and you take that horizontal run — just that run, not the blob it belongs to. Tap a can with no matching neighbour to its left or right and you take the vertical run in its column instead, which is the blunt tool for cutting a tall column down fast.
Takes stay small and exact, so every shot is a choice. Because a blob is only ever worth its longest line here, there is no reward for growing one — you are looking for lines, and for the shapes that will fall into lines.
A tap takes every can of that colour connected to the one you hit, up, down, left and right, however sprawling the shape. Takes of a dozen or more are routine, and since score grows with the square of the group, the strongest play is to let a colour grow into a continent and harvest it in one shot. The shelf feeds faster here to keep that honest.
LINES rules, but the cans arrive on a clock rather than on your shots, and the clock keeps tightening. Thinking time is the thing you are spending. There are eight levels; reach a level's target score during a run and you climb to the next one immediately, keeping your score. The run ends when a column reaches the rail, at whatever level you had got to.
| Level | Name | Climb at | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Novice | 2,500 | Gentle drops, plenty of room |
| 2 | Casual | 6,000 | Faster, and more cans per drop |
| 3 | Active | 11,000 | The shelf starts to keep up with you |
| 4 | Challenger | 18,000 | Five cans a drop |
| 5 | Advanced | 27,000 | Little room left to hesitate |
| 6 | Expert | 38,000 | Six cans a drop |
| 7 | Master | 52,000 | Drops arrive about twice as fast as Novice |
| 8 | Overdrive | — | The top of the ladder. Survive as long as you can |
Within every level the drops also accelerate as the run goes on, down to that level's floor. Each run starts again at level 1.
Take a big enough group in one shot and a special can is left behind where you shot, carrying that colour. Specials are always earned — none is ever placed on the shelf for you.
SWEEP deals in much bigger groups than LINES, so it asks for more. The rungs below are set from what each game's play actually produces.
| Special | LINES & FREE FALL | SWEEP | What it clears when fired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shaker | 3 cans | 4 cans | Its whole column, top to bottom |
| Banger | 4 cans | 6 cans | Its whole row, right across the shelf |
| Bombshell | 5 cans | 8 cans | A three-by-three block around itself |
| Paint Can | 6 or more | 11 or more | Every can of its colour, anywhere on the shelf |
A group scores ten times its size, times its size again. Patience compounds, and that is the entire scoring system.
| Cans in one shot | Score | Compared with taking them singly |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | 90 | 3× better |
| 4 | 160 | 4× better |
| 5 | 250 | 5× better |
| 7 | 490 | 7× better (70 taken one at a time) |
| 10 | 1,000 | 10× better |
| 15 | 2,250 | 15× better |
| 20 | 4,000 | 20× better |
A fired special scores 15 points for every can it takes, however many that is. It does not get the squared bonus — the reward for a special was earned when you built it, not when it goes off. Fire specials for the shape of the board they leave you, not for the points.
Two cans are worth 40. Waiting until those two are part of six is worth 360. If a group is not going to grow, it can still wait.
Taking cans low in a column drops everything above them. That is how you move a colour into position — you rarely build a group by adding to it, you build it by dropping cans onto it.
A can with no matching neighbour beside it gives you its column instead. When one column is running toward the rail, that is often the shot that saves the run.
Pick a colour and refuse to touch it while you play around it. The feed is capped, so one enormous take costs you no more back than a moderate one.
A special is worth more as a tool than as points. Two sitting in each other's blast radius is the one chain the game allows — set it up before you pull the trigger.
Cans land in the shortest columns first, so an even shelf buys you time and a jagged one hands the clock a head start. Flatten early, at the low levels, while flattening is cheap.
LINES, SWEEP and FREE FALL share a shelf and share nothing else about how they play.
Novice through Overdrive, climbed by scoring rather than by unlocking.
Shaker, Banger, Bombshell and Paint Can, each priced to the game you earned it in.
Cans tumble, bounce, dent and clatter off the shelf. The board itself resolves instantly and exactly — the physics is there for the pleasure of it, and never decides anything.
Metal pings, hollow bonks and the rattle of a bin filling underneath, with music you can switch off independently of the effects.
Distinct taps for a shot, a big take and a special going off. Switchable.
Your best five scores in each game, kept on your device and shown on the home screen and after every run.
No account, no sign-in, no connection required. Everything happens on your device.
The full How To Play — basics, games, specials, scoring — is in the pause menu, readable mid-run.
Settings are on the home screen behind the gear icon; sound and music can also be toggled from the pause menu during a run. Every setting is remembered between sessions.
Colour is never the only thing carrying information: every can colour also has its own label pattern, legible at shelf size, so groups can be read without relying on hue. The game is portrait-only and the interface respects your device's safe area, including notches and rounded corners.
You are almost certainly playing LINES, where a tap takes the row run through the can you hit rather than the whole blob. The other reds a row up are a different group. If you want the whole connected shape in one shot, that is SWEEP.
In LINES and FREE FALL, the row wins whenever the can you tapped has at least one matching neighbour beside it. When it has none, you get the vertical run in its column instead. It is not a mis-tap — it is the game's blunt instrument, and it is available exactly where a colour has no horizontal partner.
No, it is the design. Cans that fall into a matching group do not clear themselves, so everything that leaves the shelf leaves because you shot it. The only exception is a special caught in another special's blast, which does go off.
Take a big enough group in a single shot: three cans in LINES or FREE FALL, four in SWEEP, for the cheapest one. See the Specials table for the full ladder. Specials are never handed out, and never appear on the shelf at the start of a run.
Specials are not part of any colour group — they are their own thing. Tapping one fires it. It will never be swept up as part of a matching blob or line.
Specials pay a flat 15 per can rather than the squared group bonus. A Paint Can that takes twelve cans scores 180, where twelve cans taken as one group would score 1,440. Fire specials for the board they leave you, not for the points.
No. Shots fire the moment you press, and there is no undo, no retry and no shuffle. On a desktop build, moving the pointer over a can previews what that tap would take before you click — on a phone there is no hover to preview with, so a press is a shot.
Never. A single can is always a legal shot, so there is always something you can do. The only way a run ends is a column reaching the rail.
No. Every Free Fall run starts at Novice and climbs from there by scoring, so the ladder is part of the run rather than a progression you unlock. Your best five Free Fall scores are kept.
Scores are stored on the device by the app itself, so uninstalling removes them and they cannot be recovered afterwards. There is no cloud save and no account, which is also why nothing about you leaves your phone.
Not at present — there are no in-app purchases in version 1.0, so there is nothing to buy and no ad-free tier. Ads only appear between games and are rationed deliberately. If that is something you would pay for, tell us; it is the sort of thing we decide based on what players ask for.
Yes, completely. Nothing about play needs a connection. Without one you simply see no ads.
The game itself has no violence, no chat, no user-generated content and no purchases. It does show advertising, so the appropriate age rating is the one shown on the store listing. Parents who want no advertising at all can keep the device offline, which leaves the game fully playable.
iPhone and iPad running iOS 15 or later, and Android phones and tablets running Android 8.0 (API 26) or later. The game is portrait-only on every device.
RattleCan is portrait-only by design — the shelf is a tall shape and rotating it would mean a different game. It scales to tablet screens and respects safe areas, but it will not rotate.
Force-quit it and reopen, then restart the device if that does not help. If it persists, reinstall — but note that reinstalling clears your saved scores. Get in touch before you do if losing them matters.
Check the ringer or silent switch first, then the in-game settings: sound effects and music are separate toggles and either can be off on its own. On iOS, the silent switch mutes the game.
Check that haptics are on in RattleCan's settings, and that vibration is enabled in your device's own system settings. Some Android devices also suppress vibration in battery saver mode.
Close other apps, and turn off battery saver — it caps the frame rate on most devices. A long run with a lot of debris on screen is the heaviest moment in the game; if it only stutters there, a restart of the app clears it.
Wait a couple of seconds for the close button to appear, then use it rather than the system back gesture. If an ad hangs, force-quit and reopen the game — your best scores are saved as soon as a run ends, so nothing is lost.
It ends the moment you tap the cans it is pointing at, and it will not accept a different tap. Take the shot it is asking for and it never appears again in that game.
Email info@kestrelpublishing.co.uk. We read everything, including the bug reports that turn out to be feature requests and the feature requests that turn out to be bugs.
To get a useful answer faster, tell us:
We aim to reply within a few working days. Refunds are handled by Apple and Google rather than by us, through the store you downloaded from.