How to Play Tangerine 10
Tangerine 10 is a two-minute number puzzle. You drag a box around tangerines whose numbers add up to exactly ten, and they pop. Here is every rule, including the ones the game never spells out.
The board
Every game starts with a fresh grid of tangerines. Each one carries a number from 1 to 9, drawn at random, so no two games are ever the same. The grid size depends on how wide your browser window is.
| Computers and most tablets | 10 rows × 17 columns — 170 tangerines |
|---|---|
| Phones (window 600 px wide or less) | 12 rows × 14 columns — 168 tangerines |
| Numbers | 1 to 9, randomly distributed |
| Time limit | 120 seconds |
Which board does a tablet get?
The game picks the board once, when the page loads, from the width of the browser window in CSS pixels. A window 600 pixels wide or narrower gets the 12 × 14 phone board; anything wider gets the 10 × 17 board. Tablets report widths well above 600 even in portrait — an iPad in portrait is 768 pixels wide or more — so tablets get the 17-column board, scaled down to fit the screen. Rotating the device or resizing the window does not change the board until you reload the page. A small tablet held in portrait shows fairly small tangerines; turning it to landscape before the page loads gives each tangerine more room.
The one rule that matters
Press and drag to draw a rectangle across the board. Every tangerine whose center falls inside that rectangle gets selected. When you release, the game adds up the selected numbers. If the total is exactly 10, those tangerines pop and you score. If it is 9, or 11, or anything else, nothing happens and you try again.
Exactly ten. Not "ten or less", not "a multiple of ten". A selection of 3 + 7 clears. A selection of 3 + 7 + 1 does not, and neither does 3 + 6.
Because the selection is a rectangle, the shape of your drag matters as much as the numbers. Two tangerines sitting diagonally from each other can be caught by one box, but that box will also catch whatever sits in the other two corners. Empty spaces left by tangerines you already popped are ignored, which is why the board gets easier to work with as it thins out.
How scoring works
Your score is not the sum of the numbers. It is the number of tangerines you clear, multiplied by your current combo bonus.
| Score per clear | tangerines cleared × combo multiplier, rounded down |
|---|---|
| Clearing 1 + 9 | 2 tangerines → 2 points at base rate |
| Clearing 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 | 4 tangerines → 4 points at base rate |
This is the single most important thing to understand about the game. A pair that adds to ten is worth two points. Four small numbers that add to ten are worth four. The numbers themselves are irrelevant to your score — only how many tangerines you removed.
The combo multiplier
Clear tangerines in quick succession and a combo counter builds. The multiplier climbs in steps, and it is generous at the top end.
| Combo count | Multiplier | Four tangerines are worth |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ×1 | 4 points |
| 2 – 4 | ×1.5 | 6 points |
| 5 – 9 | ×2 | 8 points |
| 10 – 19 | ×3 | 12 points |
| 20 and above | ×5 | 20 points |
The combo resets after two seconds. Every successful clear restarts a two-second countdown. Pause longer than that to look for a better move and your streak drops to zero, taking the multiplier with it.
That two-second window is the real difficulty of Tangerine 10. Finding matches is easy. Finding the next one before the timer runs out, twenty times in a row, is not.
Controls
- Mouse: hold the left button, drag a box, release to submit the selection.
- Touch: press and drag with one finger. While a game is running, a touch that starts on the board draws a box instead of scrolling the page. Touches anywhere else scroll as usual.
- Restart: the Restart button under the timer ends the current game straight away and shows the result card. Press Play Again for a new board.
When the game ends
At 120 seconds the board locks, your score is final, and a result card appears over the board.
- My History adds the run to a list of your last five games. The list exists only while the page is open; it is not stored on your device, so reloading the page clears it.
- The leaderboard is not automatic. If your score beats the current third place, a name box appears on the result card. Type a name and press Save & Play Again — only then is the score uploaded. An empty box is saved as "Player". If you close the page or press nothing, the score is not sent anywhere.
- Scores that do not reach the top three show the current best score instead, and the button simply starts a new board.
New to the game? Read the strategy guide next — it explains why chasing big rectangles is usually the wrong instinct.