Pack It

Pack It is a free packing game about moving day: you have to fit everything in the box before the movers arrive. Each object appears above an open cardboard box; you drag it in, turn it, let go, and it drops onto the pile under real physics. It lands with a thud, tips, wobbles and settles exactly where the physics puts it, so every box is a little different even when you plan it the same way. It is a physics stacking game you play in your browser with no download, and it sits among our physics games and stacking games.

On the game page Pack It is endless: box after box, new ones every time you play, each on a movers' clock of its own. The first four are the classic moving day. Box 1 is the warm-up: a few books, a mug, a teapot, a toaster or a rolling pin. Box 2 is the living room: a desk lamp that never lies flat, a fan, a globe on its stand, an old TV or a rubber duck that bounces. Box 3 is the garage: a bowling ball that rolls into the corner, a traffic cone, a guitar, a step ladder and, now and then, a cat that will not stay where you put it. Box 4 is everything else: a grand piano on its legs, a canoe, a bathtub, a fridge, a lawn mower, a double bass and, now and then, the kitchen sink. After that the garage and everything-else boxes keep coming in narrower boxes, in four steps, and the clock drops from 45 seconds a box to 25.

Everything has to end up inside the box and below the dashed lid line, and from the second box on, before the lid closes the movers lift the box with a bump, so a wobbly tower can still topple over the rim at the last moment. A box that will not close clean is a messy box: the third one ends the move, and so does a clock that runs out. The boxes are random every run, but each level is exactly as hard on every run: every box was packed by our test player, which taped every one of them clean within its clock, and sorted into levels by how often it manages that. So every box can be won, and the later ones really are harder.

Scoring rewards a neat job as much as a fast one. A box that closes clean scores 1,000 points plus up to 600 for tightness: the lower your pile stays under the lid line, the more you get, and every second left on its clock adds 10 more. A messy box is taped anyway for 300 points, less 100 for every object on the floor. Top scores are re-simulated on our servers from your moves, so every score on the board was really packed, which puts Pack It among our competitive games.

Prefer a set length? Moving day is the classic run: four boxes on one 95-second clock, and everyone packs the same four boxes each day, so after each clean box you see how your pile compares with the other packers of the day, with a line like "tighter than 72% of today's packers". You get one go a day, and a new set arrives at midnight Eastern time. The end card shows your taped boxes with what is inside them and a shipping label of the absurd contents, made to be screenshotted, and it fits our quick games.

The controls are a single drag, so it plays the same on a phone and on a computer. On mobile games, drag anywhere with a finger: the object follows your finger's movement without hiding under it, and lifting your finger over the box drops it. Tap to turn it an eighth of a turn, or twist the round handle above it for fine angles. On PC games the mouse does the same, Q and E or the arrow keys turn the object, and P pauses. It is also one of our casual games for adults and free games to play at work.