TopSticks: Pick Up Sticks

Pick up sticks, the way it should have been made.

TopSticks takes the classic Mikado / pick-up-sticks game and finally gives it the one thing it never had: decisions.

THE RULES YOU ALREADY KNOW
Sticks are dropped into a pile. You can only take one that nothing else is resting on. In the old games, touching the wrong stick ended your turn.

WHAT'S DIFFERENT

YANK — the move that changes everything
Stuck? Hold down a buried stick and YANK it out. You'll get it, but you'll spend one of your GRIP points, and every stick that was resting on top gets knocked loose. Knowing when to spend a grip is a real decision, not a rule you follow.

ORDERS, NOT CLEARING
You don't have to take the whole pile apart. Each level gives you a short order — say, two red sticks and five blue ones — and you choose which part of the pile to open first. The same pile can be solved in very different numbers of moves.

X-RAY
Press it to see every stick's depth, colour-coded from the bottom of the pile to the top. Three uses per level, so the question becomes when you need it most.

COMBOS
Take sticks without a mistake and your combo climbs. It cashes out as coins at the end of the level.

50 LEVELS · 5 CHAPTERS
From a quiet wood table to a bamboo shade, a neon night market, a candy jar and finally an obsidian desk. Each chapter brings its own material and its own kind of order. Later levels tighten your move budget and ask for three colours at once.

FIVE STICK SKINS
Original oak, bamboo, neon, candy and obsidian. Unlock them with coins you earn by playing.

QUICK TO LEARN, QUIET TO PLAY
One-finger controls, portrait, no timer pressure except your own move budget. Play a level in a queue or ten in a row.

NO ACCOUNTS
Your progress is saved on your device. Nothing to register, nothing to sync, nothing to remember.

Take a look at the pile. Which stick is free?