Paws & Paths

The pitch

Link matching cats, bears, and rabbits to collect your goals in 50 colorful puzzle levels. Build long chains to launch helpful paws, break through ice, and find paths around metal blocks before your moves run out.

Controls & how it runs

Click and drag with a mouse, or drag with your finger, across neighboring matching animals. Release to collect the chain and let new animals drop in. Reach the goals above the board within the move limit. Once introduced, chains of four or more launch extra paws. Clear animals next to numbered ice to break it; metal blocks stay in place. Use Undo to rethink a move or Hint when you need help.

Getting a run going takes exactly one press: Press start, up top, and the game boots inside this page — nothing downloads in the background and no form wants your details before the first jump. The cabinet is drawn for a flexible screen and listens to mouse, keyboard or touch, whichever the game prefers. It reshapes itself for tall and wide screens alike, so phone, tablet and desktop all get the full picture. Given a fullscreen button, use it — scores look better at full size, that's just science.

Pro tips for arcade cabinets

• Treat your first run as a scouting mission. Arcade cabinets hide their cruelty in the second minute, not the first — learn where the difficulty spikes before you start chasing numbers.
• Small scores compound. Grab the easy pickups on every pass instead of gambling the whole run on one heroic line; heroes respawn, banked points don't evaporate.
• Watch the edges of the screen. In classic arcade design the next problem almost always enters from somewhere you weren't looking — build the habit of scanning the borders.

Paws & Paths — quick-fire questions

Does Paws & Paths cost anything to play?

Not a token. The cabinet is free from the first run to the five-hundredth — no wallet, no sign-up, no toll booth hiding three levels in. The adverts around the page are what keep the floor's lights on.

What sort of game is Paws & Paths?

It stands on our Arcade row — that's the family it plays most like. The pitch above is the publisher's own rundown of what it throws at you and what it hands back.

Can I play Paws & Paths on my phone?

Happily, yes. It runs inside the browser on phones and tablets the same way it does on a computer. It reshapes itself for tall and wide screens alike, so phone, tablet and desktop all get the full picture.

Do I need to install anything first?

Nothing whatsoever. Paws & Paths is an HTML5 game: hit the start button and it boots on this page, and shutting the tab sweeps the cabinet clean behind you.

Before you wander off

Personal best banked, or still chasing it? Either way the full Arcade row is powered on and waiting — The main floor: 415 cabinets of pure arcade stock — the quick, the loud and the gloriously unfair. If it beeps, flashes and dares you to beat a number, it lives on this row.