Daily Brains · push, pull and swap a party of tiny heroes onto their stars.
Hero Star is a once-a-day block puzzle on a floating island. A small party of 3D heroes stands among stone blocks and rock, with one gold star tile for each hero. Move one hero at a time and use their one trick: the Warrior pushes a whole row of blocks, the Thief can only pull, and the Wizard trades places with the first block or hero in a straight line. Get every hero onto a star at once, in as few moves as you can. Every island is solved by computer, so par is the true minimum. It is a hero-party block puzzle in the tradition of Heroes of Sokoban and Order of the Sinking Star, cut down to one small, readable board a day.
STORY & LORE
One trick each
The idea of a party where every member has exactly one verb comes from the hero-party Sokoban puzzles (Heroes of Sokoban, and the Hearty Heroes realm of Order of the Sinking Star). Those games are dense: many heroes, mirrors, beams and monsters. Hero Star keeps the three core verbs, push, pull and swap, and spends the week teaching them one at a time, the way Mini Great Chess teaches one old chess piece a day.
How the islands are made
Islands are generated offline by scripts/hero-star/generate.mjs. A random island (or, for the full party, a verified Thursday pair grown into a bigger frame with the third hero added) is hill-climbed: every candidate is solved by an exhaustive breadth-first search using the game's own rules, and kept only if par sits in the weekday's band, the search has to work for it (thousands of states explored before the first solution), the solution is mostly puzzle rather than walking, and at most one block never moves. The finalists then have to pass proofs: with one or two heroes, switching any hero's trick off makes the island unsolvable; with the full party, switching any one trick off means no way in under par + 3. On Saturday and Sunday, turning the gates or pits to rock must make the island unsolvable, so the weekend element always matters. scripts/test-hero-star.mjs re-proves every island in the book with the game's rules.
CHARACTERS & ENEMIES
WarriorPushesHERORed tunic, steel helm, round shield. Walks into a block to shove it, and the whole row of blocks behind it, one square, as long as the square past the row is free (or an open pit, which the last block drops into). He cannot pull, and nobody can shove another hero.
ThiefPullsHEROGreen hood and mask. Cannot push at all. Whenever he steps away from a block right behind him, he drags it into the square he just left. He always does: walking past blocks carelessly can wreck a plan, which is why Tuesday has real dead ends.
WizardSwapsHEROBlue robe, tall hat, glowing staff. Cannot push or pull. Press Swap and a beam shows the first block or hero in each straight line; tap one and they trade places. The beam crosses floor, pits and the gaps between islands, but rock and shut gates stop it, so the Wizard is the only hero who can reach another island.
HOW IT PLAYS
Goal
There is one star tile per hero. The island is solved the moment every hero stands on a star (any hero on any star). A block standing on a star blocks it.
Moving
Tap a hero (or their card above the board, or press 1, 2, 3 or Tab) to pick who moves. Swipe anywhere, tap the square next to the hero, or use the arrow keys or WASD. Tapping a farther square walks there by plain steps (no pushing or pulling on the way). The Wizard's Swap button (or Space) lights the targets; tap one, swipe toward it or press an arrow. Undo (U) and Restart (R) are free and unlimited. A blocked move gets a short explanation (the Thief cannot push, the gate is shut, and so on).
Weekend elements
Saturday: brass plates and iron gates. While a hero or block stands on any plate, every gate is open; step off and the cage comes back up, unless something is standing in the gate. Sunday: pits. No hero can cross an open pit; a block pushed in falls and fills it, and from then on it is floor. The Wizard's beam passes over pits.
Scoring
Par is the fewest moves the island can be solved in (each step or swap is one move; switching hero is free). Solving in par scores 1000 and a gold star, which is a perfect day. Over par scores 1000 x par / moves (never below 100); up to par + 25% (at least 2) is silver, anything else bronze. Give up (tap twice) plays out an answer and scores 0. The share line gives the moves, par, medal and party, with no emoji.
Look and speed
The island is real 3D in three.js (vendored, r128), built from cheap flat-shaded shapes with instanced tiles, soft blob shadows instead of shadow maps, and it only renders while something moves. Phones get a capped pixel ratio, and the game falls back to a top-down 2D drawing if WebGL is unavailable. The hero portraits on the cards are rendered from the same 3D figures.
THE ISLAND
Everything on the board, ripped from the game.
Block
Wall
Goal
Switch
Door
HazardGALLERY
THE WEEK
222 islands in the book, one list per weekday; no island comes back for 210 days or more.
| Day | Party | Extra | Size | Par | Islands |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday (Gentle) | Warrior | - | 6x6 | 11-18 (avg 14.0) | 32 |
| Tuesday (Easy) | Thief | - | 6x6 | 14-20 (avg 18.1) | 32 |
| Wednesday (Steady) | Wizard | - | 6x6 | 10-16 (avg 11.9) | 32 |
| Thursday (Tricky) | Two of the three (pairs rotate) | - | 6x6 | 17-26 (avg 24.3) | 32 |
| Friday (Tough) | Warrior, Thief, Wizard | - | 6x6 | 20-32 (avg 29.4) | 32 |
| Saturday (Hard) | Warrior, Thief, Wizard | Plates and gates | 7x6 | 21-34 (avg 31.1) | 30 |
| Sunday (Fiendish) | Warrior, Thief, Wizard | Pits | 7x6 | 23-36 (avg 33.1) | 32 |
VERSION HISTORY
- First version: three heroes (push, pull, swap), plates and gates, pits; one island a day from a solver-verified book.
- Book of 222 islands (32, 32, 32, 32, 32, 30, 32 for Monday to Sunday), exact par, every trick proven needed.
- 3D diorama in three.js with a 2D fallback; achievements, streaks, share line.