How to play
Choose an ingredient, then click squares to place it. Empty squares stay neutral.
The recipe uses the original Java pattern, aligned to the upper left. Every square matters: moving or mirroring changes the answer. Oak, cobblestone and coal represent interchangeable materials.
Reading the colour clues
After each check, every filled square of your attempt gets a mark. A green tick means the right ingredient in the right square. A yellow arrow means the recipe uses that ingredient, but in a different square. A grey dot means the ingredient is not in the recipe, or that every copy of it is already accounted for: as in Wordle, exact matches are counted first and yellow marks only go to the copies that remain. Squares you leave empty never get a mark, even when the hidden recipe has an item there.
You have six attempts, and each guess needs at least one ingredient. A recipe only counts as solved when all nine squares match, empty ones included. Use this grid copies an earlier attempt back onto the crafting table, so you can change a square or two instead of rebuilding the whole pattern.
Levels, daily puzzle and practice
The campaign holds 191 crafting recipes. It opens with ten familiar ones (torch, lever, redstone torch, arrow, iron sword, bow, fishing rod, iron pickaxe, oak fence and piston) and then orders the rest by how many ingredient types and filled squares they need, finishing with recipes such as the end crystal, observer, crossbow, cake and crafter. Any level can be opened from the level list; solved ones show a tick and your fewest attempts.
Two clues are free from the start: the number of filled squares and the number of ingredient types. The difficulty badge follows the second figure: Apprentice for one or two types, Crafter for three, Master for four or more. The daily challenge gives everyone the same recipe for the current UTC day, while practice draws a random recipe and Continue moves on to another. A solve on the first attempt is worth 6 points, and each extra attempt takes one point off.
Your current level and best results are kept in this browser’s local storage, so they stay on this device. Share challenge copies a link to the current level or to the exact daily or practice recipe.
Tips for finding the recipe faster
Patterns sit in the upper-left corner of the grid, just as the Java recipe files store them. A two-square recipe such as the torch starts in square 1, and the arrow fills the left column from top to bottom: flint, stick, feather. Let the filled-square count suggest a shape: eight squares usually form a ring around an empty centre, like the chest or furnace, while four can be a compact 2×2 block such as the block of amethyst.
All planks appear as Oak Planks, wooden slabs as Oak Slab and stone crafting materials as Cobblestone, so the wood or stone type is never the puzzle. The inventory search finds any of the 90 ingredients by its name in your language, its English name or its ID, and Enter picks the first match. On a keyboard, keys 1–9 place the selected ingredient, the arrow keys move between squares, Delete or Backspace empties one and Enter checks the recipe.
Want more Minecraft? Build commands with the Minecraft Command Generator or draw a character in the Minecraft Skin Editor. For a different kind of game quiz, try the CS2 Map Quiz.
