Circuit IQ field guide
Everything the game does, with pictures. The ? on the board explains any one control on the spot; this is the whole of it, in order.
The rule
Two tiles go together when they match and a line can be drawn between them that turns no more than twice, over empty cells only. That is the whole game. It came out of a Japanese arcade cabinet in 1989 and Circuit IQ is the rule rebuilt.
The outside lane
On most levels the tiles are inset by one cell and that empty border is part of the board: a route may leave the block of tiles, travel round the outside and come back in. The last level of every world packs the tiles right to the edge, which takes the lane away.
Picking a pair
Tap a tile to pick it up, then tap the one you think it pairs with. If they match and a route can reach between them, both go. Tapping the same tile again puts it back. A wrong guess costs five points, and in the sitting it counts against you.
Settings has a Show paths switch: picking up a tile then lights every tile it can reach, for the whole run. A run played that way is kept in Scores as one played with paths shown, and stays off the leaderboards.
The screen
Everything is on one screen. From the top: the title band, the transport row, the readouts, the board, the key strip in the IQ game, and three rows of powers.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| i | The maker's page: this guide, the badges, About, a share button and the website. |
| ? | Help. A veil covers the board; tap anything under it to read what it does. Every panel has one too. |
| IQ Music | Plays or pauses the game's music. Hold it for the Tracks page. If the phone was already playing music when the app opened, the game's starts held; this button lets it go and takes the sound over. |
| ◀◀ ▶▶ | IQ Music's Back and Forward: the track before (or the start of this one, if it has been playing a while) and the next. Paused, a step starts the music on the track stepped to. |
| Speech | Speech control on and off. Red while it listens. See chapter 08. |
| New Game / Pause | Starts a run, or pauses and resumes the one in play. |
| Restart | Throws the run away and deals a new one from the first level. |
| End | Ends the run and returns to the opening panel: today's board on offer, and the Colour / IQ switch. |
| Scores | Badges, best run, stars and fastest clears, today's board, the sitting, achievements, Game Center. Its own Colour / IQ switch shows either game's records, in that game's colours, without changing the game you play or the run in progress. |
| Settings | Colour or IQ; sound, IQ Music and haptics; speech and the key; Game Center, paths, relaxed play; the tiles. |
| Score · W1·L1 ♥♥♥ · Time · Tiles · Chain | The readouts: points, where you are with your lives beside it, seconds left, tiles standing, and the chain running. Under them the clock bar, and at its end the chain bar: a link fills a tenth of it, ten fill it red, and three seconds without a pair empty it. Under those, the message band: the level's opening hint, then whatever a power has to say. |
| Colour / IQ | On the opening panel: which game the next run is. Each keeps its own records and its own board of the day. |
Colour: the worlds
A tile is a colour, and from world two it also carries a mark: numbers, then letters, then shapes. Two tiles pair only when everything on them agrees. Eight worlds of four levels, the same four board sizes in each, and every world adds something the one before did not have.
| World | Marks | What it adds |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | none | Plain. Match on colour alone, from twice the usual number of colours. |
| 2 | 1 2 3 4 | Blocks, a pair more of them each level. |
| 3 | A B C D | Gravity: clear a pair and everything above drops into the gap. |
| 4 | shapes | Blocks and gravity together. |
| 5 | none | Slide: everything slides left into the gap. |
| 6 | 1 2 3 4 | Blocks, and Centre: each column collapses toward the middle from both ends. |
| 7 | A B C D | Split: each row pulls apart from the middle. |
| 8 | shapes | Blocks, and Shear: rows above the middle slide left, rows below slide right. |
From world three some shape marks are dealt turned, by a multiple of fifteen degrees; a turned mark is the same mark, only harder to read. From the third level of world five the board drifts: every so many seconds two tiles quietly change places.
IQ: figures under a key
The same board and the same two-turn rule, dealt with figures instead of colours: sixteen shapes, five fills, one to three marks side by side, black on a card. Under the board sits the key, and the key says what a pair is on this board. It changes every four levels.
| World | Key | A pair is |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Match | Two identical figures. No key. |
| 2 | Cue | Two figures that share the named thing: SHAPE, FILL or COUNT. The rule changes after a set number of pairs, never repeating on a board; if a rule runs out of moves the key changes by itself. |
| 3 | Code | A digit and the figure the table gives it. The last level redeals the table halfway. |
| 4 | Trail | Not a pair: one tile at a time, in the key's order, each reached by a route from the last one cleared. A ring marks where the last tile went from. |
| 5 | Steps | A figure and its neighbour one step up the scale: the next fill, then the next shape. |
| 6 | Trail B | The trail again, alternating digits and figures. |
| 7 | Sum | Two figures of one shape whose counts add to the key's target. Fills do not matter. |
| 8 | Matrix | Clear the field as pairs; then pick up the missing figure and route it into the ? card, and the block goes. Rotate is off on these boards. |
Turned figures and drifting tiles apply here too, from the same worlds. The IQ game wears its own light look, and every panel follows it.
The twelve powers
Three rows of four along the bottom, grouped by what they do: a row that finds or takes a pair, a row that changes the board, a row for the clock and the board's orientation. The number on each is its charges, and so is its colour: twenty steps through the icon's palette, from teal at four down to magenta for the last, grey when spent. Tap one and it fires; a power that needs a tile named stays lit until you name it. The box under the clock tells you what the power wants next, what it is doing, and how many seconds it has left, as it runs.
| Row 1 | Finds or takes a pair |
|---|---|
| Reveal | Points out one pair you can take right now. |
| Gravity | For twenty seconds the tiles fall the way you hold the phone: tilt toward an edge and every tile slides to it, toward a corner and they pile into the corner, live. A cleared pair settles by the tilt too. Refuses on Matrix boards. |
| Random | Takes a matching pair off the board, chosen for you. |
| Clear | Tap it, then name two matching tiles. They go whether or not a route could reach between them. |
| Row 2 | Changes the board |
| Shuffle | Redeals the tiles still standing, in the places they already occupy. |
| Swap | Tap it, then name two tiles. They change places, route or no route. |
| Break | Tap it, then name one tile. Every tile of that kind goes. The most plentiful kind on a full board is four to six pairs deep; finding it is the point. |
| Align | Every turned mark stands upright for twenty seconds; then each turns again, to a new angle. |
| Row 3 | The clock and the orientation |
| Freeze | Stops the clock for twenty seconds. Under gravity nothing falls until it ends. |
| Lift | Turns the world's settling upside down for twenty seconds, then it settles back. |
| Rot L / Rot R | Turns the whole board a quarter turn. On a settling world the board drops into a new shape entirely. |
They are a budget for the whole run, not an allowance each level. More come two ways: clear a level with clock to spare, a quarter left earns one charge and three fifths earns two, and finish a world, which banks three. Every charge goes to whatever you are shortest of among the powers the next board can use. Spend early and the last world will find out.
Chains, stars, lives
Chains
Pairs found within three seconds of each other chain, and every link past the first is worth more than the one before: 6, 12, 20, 30, 42 and on up. The Chain readout counts the links, and the small bar beside the clock fills with them: full at ten, and red. Past ten, every link adds a second to the clock - the readout shows the seconds gained, the clock bar grows as you watch - and the bar takes a new colour with each link.
Stars
Every level you clear against the clock earns stars: one for clearing it, two with a quarter of the clock still to run, three with three fifths. The best on each level is kept in Scores.
Lives
A run has three, shown as hearts beside the level. Running out of time costs one, and you are offered the same level again, dealt fresh, with your score standing and the powers you spent still spent. On no lives the run is over. Clearing the last level of a world gives a life back, up to three.
When the board dies
Sometimes tiles remain but nothing can be joined. Nothing rescues you: a banner appears and it is up to you to spend a power. Shuffle, Random, Clear, Break or either turn will open it back up.
Without a clock
Settings has a relaxed switch. The clock counts up instead of down, a level ends only when the board is clear, and there are no lives to lose. Nothing is scored in a relaxed run.
Leaving mid-run
Close the app in the middle of a level and the run is kept: the board as you left it, your score, your charges. The next launch offers to pick it up.
Today's board and the sitting
Today's board
One board a day for each game, and it is the same board for every player: the date picks which of the thirty-two levels it is and deals it, so two people who played today played exactly the same tiles. One attempt, always against the clock, and clearing it on consecutive days builds a streak, kept separately for Colour and IQ. It is on the opening panel while it is unplayed, and in Scores either way.
The sitting
From Scores: ten levels, two minutes each, no powers, and a dead board dealt again for nothing. Each level is worth up to a hundred, seventy for the share of the board cleared, thirty for the clock left if it was cleared, two off for every wrong pair. The ten add up to an index out of a thousand, with a band from Warm-up to Flawless. Your best index is kept for each game.
Playing one level
Any level you have cleared can be played on its own from Scores, restocked, to go at your time again. It counts toward that level's best but not toward your best run.
Speech control
Switch it on with the Speech button by the title, or in Settings. While it listens the button is red, and the board wears a key along its edge: numbers over the columns, 1 from the left, and letters down the left side, A from the top. A tile is its letter and number: B3 is row B, column 3. Settings can reverse both.
Say a tile by its letter and number - "B3", row B and column 3 - and it is picked up as if tapped. A letter the recogniser keeps mishearing has a call sign that it never does: "alpha 3", "bravo 3", "charlie 5", and so on to "juliet". Say a power by name and it fires. The rest of the chrome answers too:
revealgravityrandomclearshuffleswapbreakalignfreezeliftrotate leftrotate right
pauseresumenew gameendtoday's boardrestartsettingsaboutscoresbadgesinfohelpguideclosecolourIQ
Help, the panels, the records
Not sure what something does? Tap the ? beside the i. The screen dims and, wherever you tap, the control beneath lights up with a bubble explaining it: a button, a readout, a power, a tile, a card of the key. Tap Close to leave. Every panel has a ? of its own that explains its rows.
Keyboard and controller
The whole game runs from a keyboard or a game controller. A ring marks where you are: the arrow keys, WASD, a controller's D-pad or left stick move it from tile to tile and on to the powers, the transport row and the small buttons, in the direction you press; Tab and Shift-Tab, or the shoulder buttons, step through everything in order. Return, Space or A acts on what the ring is on - a tile is picked up, a button pressed, a switch thrown; on a slider or a two-way switch, left and right work it. Escape or B goes back: drops a selection, stands down an armed power, closes a panel. A controller's Menu button pauses and resumes, and X opens the help veil, where the ring asks about whatever it lands on. Any controller iOS knows works, including the Xbox Adaptive Controller: everything is reached from the D-pad, A and B alone. The ring appears with the first key or button and goes with the first touch.
Scores
Scores opens on the game in Settings and has a Colour / IQ switch of its own at the top. Under it, the badges - chapter 10 - then the records: best run, furthest level, stars in total, the fastest clear and best score of every level, today's board and its streak, the sitting's best index, totals, how often each power has been used, and the sixteen achievements. Any cleared level can be replayed from its row. Clear all scores wipes every record of both games.
Game Center
The first launch asks once: keep your scores on this device, or connect to Game Center as well. On this device, nothing else is touched. Connected, your best run, your fastest clear of every level and today's board go to leaderboards, in each game, and the achievements are earned there too; sign-in is Game Center's own sheet. The game plays the same either way, and Settings has the switch.
Settings
By section: the game, Colour or IQ; sound and its volume, IQ Music and its volume, haptics; speech control and the key's direction; Game Center or this device, show paths, relaxed play; and the tiles - bold glyphs, high contrast colours, whether the run is drawn when a pair clears. Under IQ Music, Tracks lists the thirteen tunes that ship: select the ones you want, play only those or all of them, in your order or at random, hold and drag a track to reorder, and name the track the app starts with. The row at the top shows what is playing, with its volume and buttons to step back, hold or skip on. Soft, on from the start, holds the music and the effects down to a background. Every track fades out at its end and the next fades in; a short one repeats, on the beat, until it has played three minutes. The panel's ? explains every row.
Badges
A hundred medals for each game, earned from the records the game already keeps. Nothing about them is hidden: every one says what earns it, and the moment a record crosses its line the badge is announced in the message band, once, with the date kept. They live at the top of Scores: a strip of all hundred, the earned ones first and in their metal, and an All badges page that lays them out three to a row with their names. Tap a medal to read what earns it, its tier, and when you earned it.
The families
Badges come in families, each with its own colour from the icon and its own symbol at the centre, and each family is a run of thresholds from the easy to the hard:
| Family | What counts | The run |
|---|---|---|
| Pairs | Pairs cleared, all told | 100 to 10,000 |
| Levels | Levels cleared, all told | 10 to 250 |
| Games | Runs, boards of the day and sittings played | 5 to 100 |
| Hours | Time played | 1 to 25 hours |
| Run | A single run's score | 1,000 to 50,000 |
| Worlds | How far a run has reached | World 2 to the last level |
| Stars | Stars across the levels, and levels with all three | 12 to 96; 4 to 32 levels |
| Chain | The longest chain | 3 to 25 links |
| Perfect | Levels cleared without a wrong guess | 1 to 100 |
| Runs | Full runs, and full runs without losing a life | 1 to 10; 1 and 3 |
| Daily | The streak, and boards of the day cleared | 3 to 100 days; 5 to 100 boards |
| Sitting | The best index, and sittings played | 500 to the full 1,000; 1 and 5 |
| Powers | Powers fired, all told, and each power twenty-five times | 25 to 500; one per power |
| Clean sweep | Breaks that took four pairs or more | 1 to 25 |
The metals
Within a family the medals rise through four metals by how far along it they are: bronze, a plain disc; silver, its edge scalloped; gold, set on a sunburst; platinum, wreathed in laurel. Every medal hangs from a ribbon in its family's colour, carries its family's symbol on an enamel at the centre, its title engraved round the foot, and one to four stars along the crown for its metal. A medal not yet earned is the same design in dull pewter, so you can see what is waiting.
Support and privacy
Circuit IQ collects no data. Your settings, your scores, your streaks and the run you are in the middle of are kept on your device and never leave it. The app makes no network requests of its own; today's board is worked out from the date. Speech control listens only while it is on, and recognises speech on the device. Game Center, if you connect, is Apple's, under Apple's privacy policy.
Something wrong, or an idea? Write to support@macdevstudio.com with your device, your iOS version, which game and level you were on, and what happened.