The lights are on. Come play.

Field notes

How each cabinet works

Read this once and you will never need it again.

Lumen Grid

Twenty-five lamps in a five by five square. Pressing a lamp flips it and the four lamps directly above, below, left and right of it. Corners and edges flip fewer neighbours, which is where most of the difficulty lives.

The board is solved when every lamp is lit. Every board is generated by scrambling a fully lit board, so a solution always exists — and because each press is its own opposite, pressing the same lamp twice undoes it. Order never matters, only which lamps you end up pressing.

Fewer presses and less time both mean more Glow. A run is five boards, each scrambled a little harder than the last.

Tide Catch

You hold a net on the boardwalk. Lantern fish drop from the dark and are worth points; driftwood drops too, and costs you a life. You have three lives and the tide gets faster the longer you last.

Move with the left and right arrow keys, or A and D, or by holding a finger anywhere on the water. Golden fish are worth triple and fall faster than they look.

Current Line

The generator sits top left and the harbour lamp sits bottom right. Between them is a grid of conduit pieces, every one of them rotated wrong.

Press a piece to turn it a quarter turn clockwise. Power flows from the generator through any two pieces whose ends actually meet — pieces carrying power light up amber, so you can always see how far you have got. The board is won the moment the lamp lights.

Every board is built from a full wiring plan and then scrambled, so it is always solvable. Fewer turns and less time mean more Glow. A run is five boards.

What Glow is

Glow is a number kept in your browser's storage, on your own device. It is not a currency, not a balance and not an account. It cannot be bought, sold, gifted, withdrawn or exchanged for money, goods, services or anything else. Clearing your browser data deletes it and we cannot restore it.

The studio

Pixora Works

Pixora is a small studio that makes free browser games. We are seven people between Wellington, Porto and one very patient contractor in Reykjavík, and we have been shipping small games together since 2021 under a different name.

Why we built it

We wanted the specific pleasure of a seaside arcade — the bulbs, the hum, the machine that will absolutely let you try again — without the part that eventually asks for a card number. We decided at the start that ours never would, and then we designed the product so that it structurally cannot: there is no payment system, no shop, no balance and no reward pool anywhere in it.

That constraint turned out to be freeing. When a score cannot be sold, you get to tune it purely for how satisfying it is to earn.

How we are funded

Pixora is funded by the studio's contract work. We run no advertising, we sell no player data, and we take no affiliate payments from anyone. If that ever changes, this page changes first and the privacy policy changes with it.

What we will never do

• Take a payment or deposit of any kind.
• Hand out money, goods or vouchers for playing.
• Let Glow be bought, sold, transferred or redeemed.
• Sell a link on this site to anyone, for anything.

The people

Nia Farrow — studio lead. Wrote the first Lumen Grid on a ferry with a dying laptop.
Tomás Rocha — systems and scoring. Owns the long-running argument about how many presses is fair.
Ada Meireles — art direction, the bulb motif, every title screen.
Kofi Adjei — sound. Recorded the whole arcade at a real pier in February.
Sunniva Rask — community and support. Answers the contact form herself.
Everyone else — see jobs, where there are more of us than there were last year.

Pixora Works Ltd., 14 Cuba Street, Te Aro, Wellington 6011, New Zealand. Company no. 8412996. This is a sample site and the entity details above are illustrative.

Internal sheet

How we pick games

Every idea that reaches the register has to pass four tests. Most do not.

1. It has to be readable

A player should be able to explain the rules to a friend after one round. If the pitch needs a diagram, it goes back to the whiteboard.

2. Thinking beats luck

We favour games where a careful player beats a lucky one over time. Chance can set up a board, but it should not decide it. Lumen Grid is the clearest case: the scramble is random, the solution is not.

3. It has to survive having nothing on the line

This is the test that kills most candidates. Take away any possibility of winning something and a lot of designs collapse, because the loop was never the fun part — the reward was. If a prototype is not interesting when nothing rides on it, it is not interesting.

4. No mechanics that imitate risking something

We do not build games structured around putting a balance on an outcome, and we do not borrow the interface language of products that do. Not because it would not work — because it would, and that is not what this pier is for.

Have a game you think passes all four? The contact page reaches a real person. We read everything and reply to most of it.

Asked often

Questions

Is Pixora really free?

Entirely. There is no payment system on this site. Nothing is for sale, there is no premium tier, no subscription and no in-game purchase. You could not spend money here if you wanted to.

Can I win anything?

No. Pixora is entertainment only. Every game is played for Glow, a virtual score with no cash value that can never be redeemed, withdrawn, transferred or exchanged for money, goods or services.

Do I need an account?

No. Every lit cabinet is playable immediately. An optional free account exists only so your Glow can follow you between devices, and it never involves payment details.

How old do I have to be?

The games are recommended for ages 13 and up. Accounts require 16 or over, mostly so that we are handling as little personal data as possible.

Where is my Glow stored?

In your browser's storage, on your device. It is not held on a server in this demonstration build. Clearing your browser data deletes it permanently and we cannot restore it.

Why does the site look like a pier?

Because we like piers. The bulbs, the harbour lamp and the storm logs are set dressing on an otherwise very ordinary set of puzzle games.

Do you sell my data or run ads?

Neither. See the privacy policy for the full picture, including the one analytics cookie you can decline without losing anything.

Something is broken. Who do I tell?

The contact page. Include your browser and what you were doing when it broke, and we will usually have an answer within two working days.

Can I play with a keyboard only?

Yes. Every cabinet is fully playable with Tab, Enter and the arrow keys. See accessibility for where we are and what still needs work.

Hiring

Open roles

Small team, remote across a couple of time zones, four-day week. We hire slowly and we answer every application.

Sample listings for a demonstration site. Applications to hello@pixora.lol with the role name in the subject line.

Read me

Playing well

There is no money at Pixora, but habits still matter. A game with nothing on the line can still quietly eat an evening you meant to spend somewhere else.

Decide the length before you start

Pick how long you are playing for and put a timer on your phone. Lumen Grid in particular is designed to make "one more board" feel reasonable, and it will keep feeling reasonable for an hour.

Treat the score as decoration

Glow measures nothing outside this page. It is not progress, not status and not an asset. If chasing it starts to feel like an obligation rather than a game, that is the signal to close the tab.

Play around your life, not through it

Sleep, work, people, food. If any of those are being moved to make room for a browser puzzle, the puzzle should give way.

Take the game off the screen too

Tide Catch is fast and bright. If your eyes ache or your hand cramps, stop — twenty minutes of a timed game is plenty, and the board will still be there tomorrow.

If something here worries you

If playing on this site is bound up with something heavier in your life, or you find you cannot stop when you meant to, please talk to someone you trust or to your local health service. We are game designers, not clinicians, and we would rather say that plainly than pretend otherwise.

House rules

Terms of use

1. Entertainment only

Pixora is a free-to-play games website provided solely for entertainment. All games are played for Glow, a free virtual score with no monetary value. Glow is not money and is not a payment instrument. It cannot be purchased, sold, withdrawn, transferred, gifted, traded or redeemed for money, goods or services. Pixora offers no opportunity to win money or goods of any kind.

2. Eligibility

The games are recommended for people aged 13 and over. Accounts are for people aged 16 and over, or the minimum age for consent to data processing where you live, whichever is higher. We may refuse or close an account where we reasonably believe it does not meet that requirement.

3. Nothing of value changes hands

Nothing of value goes in and nothing of value comes out. Outcomes and scores exist for amusement only, and success in these games indicates nothing about anything outside them.

4. Glow and lamp ranks

Glow and lamp ranks are a limited, personal, non-transferable licence to view score features on this site. They remain ours, confer no ownership or property right, and may be adjusted, expired, recalculated or reset at any time — for example when scoring rules change, or when we detect automated play.

5. Accounts

Accounts are free and optional. You are responsible for your credentials and for activity under your account. Do not share it. Tell us promptly if you think someone else has used it.

6. Acceptable use

Use the site lawfully. Do not attempt to disrupt or overload it, reverse-engineer it for exploit, scrape it at volume, automate play, impersonate others, harass anyone, or submit unlawful content through any form on the site. We may restrict or end access where behaviour harms the service or other players.

7. Content and fiction

All cabinets, characters, harbours and log sheets on Pixora are invented. Any resemblance to real organisations, places or people is coincidental. Nothing here is instruction, or legal, financial, safety or medical advice.

8. Intellectual property

The site, its games, code, artwork and text belong to Pixora Works Ltd. or its licensors. You may play them; you may not copy, resell or redistribute them without written permission.

9. Availability, "as is", and liability

The service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind. Games may change, pause or be withdrawn without notice. To the fullest extent permitted by law we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, lost scores, or damages arising from use of a free entertainment service. Nothing here limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

10. Changes and governing law

We may update these terms; the version date above will change and continued use means acceptance. These terms are governed by the laws of New Zealand, without prejudice to mandatory consumer protections in your country of residence.

11. Contact

Questions about these terms: hello@pixora.lol.

Need to know

Privacy policy

1. Who we are

Pixora Works Ltd., 14 Cuba Street, Te Aro, Wellington 6011, New Zealand, is the controller of personal data collected through pixora.lol. Data questions go to privacy@pixora.lol.

2. What this build collects

This demonstration build has no server-side account system. The only things kept about you are stored in your own browser: your Glow total, your best run for each cabinet, your display name if you set one, and your cookie choice. None of it is transmitted to us.

3. If you create an account on the live service

We would hold a display name, an email address, a hashed password and your Glow total, in order to provide the service and let scores follow you between devices. The lawful basis is performance of a contract with you. We do not ask for and cannot accept payment details, because there is nothing to pay for.

4. Contact form

In this sample build the contact form transmits nothing at all; submitting it only shows a confirmation. On the live service, messages and the address you send them from would be used solely to answer you, kept for up to 24 months, then deleted.

5. Cookies and analytics

Essential storage keeps your Glow, best runs and preferences on your device. Optional analytics tells us which cabinets people finish and where they get stuck. Decline it and nothing about the games changes. Full detail is on the cookie policy page.

6. What we do not do

We do not sell or rent personal data. We do not run advertising or advertising trackers. We do not build marketing profiles, and we do not share data with anyone who sells anything to players.

7. Your rights

Depending on where you live you may request access, correction, deletion, restriction or portability of your data, or object to processing, and you may complain to your local supervisory authority — in New Zealand, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. Write to privacy@pixora.lol and we will respond within one month.

8. Retention

Local data lives on your device until you clear it. Account data on the live service would be deleted within 30 days of a deletion request, or after 24 months of inactivity.

9. Children

The games are recommended for ages 13 and over and accounts are restricted to 16 and over. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has provided data, write to us and we will delete it.

10. Third parties

Web fonts are served by Google Fonts, which may receive your IP address as part of delivering them. Self-hosting the font files removes this. Hosting is provided by an infrastructure provider under a data processing agreement.

11. Changes

Material changes will be announced on this page with a new version date before they take effect.

Housekeeping

Cookie policy

Pixora uses very little. Here is all of it.

Essential — always on

• px_glow — your Glow total. Browser storage, kept until you clear it.
• px_best — your best run for each cabinet. Browser storage, kept until you clear it.
• px_name — the display name you chose, if you set one. Browser storage.
• px_consent — remembers the choice below so we stop asking. Browser storage, 12 months.

Analytics — optional

A single first-party measurement cookie recording which cabinets are started and finished, and on what kind of device. No advertising identifiers, no cross-site tracking, nothing sold. Declining costs you nothing: every game behaves identically either way.

Advertising

None. Pixora carries no advertising and sets no advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

Changing your mind

Use the button below at any time, or clear this site's data in your browser settings.

Open sheet

Accessibility

We aim to meet WCAG 2.2 level AA. We are not there on every page yet, and this states honestly where we are.

What works today

• Every cabinet is playable by keyboard: Tab to move, Enter or Space to act, arrow keys to steer in Tide Catch.
• Visible focus outlines throughout, never suppressed.
• Game feedback is announced to screen readers through a live status region.
• Lit lamps in Lumen Grid are announced as pressed or not pressed, so the game does not rely on colour perception alone.
• Powered pieces in Current Line change shape weight as well as colour.
• All animation stops when your system requests reduced motion.
• Text reflows to 320px and survives 200% zoom.

Known gaps

• Tide Catch is timed and fast, which disadvantages some players. An untimed practice mode is planned.
• The canvas in Tide Catch is not described to screen readers beyond its score. A text-mode variant is in design.
• Colour contrast on the dimmest caption text is close to the limit and is being reworked.

Tell us

If something blocks you, write to hello@pixora.lol with the page and what happened. Accessibility bugs jump the queue.

Error 404

That cabinet isn't on the pier.

Nothing on the register matches that address. It may have been retired, or it was never built.