How to Play Mottle | Controls & Your First Round

The short version

Drag to move, release to hide. Moving lets you grab fireflies but makes you glow. Standing still blends you into the tile under you in about 0.75 seconds. Survive the Seek timer without the Alert meter filling and you clear the round.

The play loop

Every round repeats the same rhythm. Once it clicks, the game is about timing it well.

1. Move Drag toward a firefly. You glow bright and the Seekers can see you.

2. Release Let go and freeze. You take on the tile's colour and vanish.

3. Let the light pass Fully blended, a cone can sweep over you without raising the Alert.

Controls

Drag

MoveTouch and drag on a phone, or click and drag with a mouse. You run toward your finger or cursor.

Release

HideLift your finger or let go of the button. You freeze and start blending into the ground.

Esc

PauseOr tap the pause button in the corner. Resume or quit from the menu.

Mottle is a one-thumb game and works in portrait or landscape.

What's on screen

The garden: a 5 × 5 grid of coloured tiles. This is where you hide.
You: a small creature that glows when moving and takes on the ground's colour when still.
Seekers: watchers that patrol and sweep light cones across the garden.
Fireflies: glowing points worth 10 each.
HUD: Score, Lives, Round and the Seek timer, plus two meters: Camo (how hidden you are) and Alert (how close you are to being caught).

Your first round

Hide! (3 seconds)You start in the centre, already blended in. Nothing moves yet, so check where each Seeker faces and which fireflies sit in quiet spots.
They SeekThe timer starts and the Seekers begin patrolling. Wait for a cone to swing away from you.
Make a short dashDrag to the nearest safe firefly. Short trips keep you exposed for less time.
Let go before the light arrivesGive yourself about a second. Watch the Camo meter fill.
Round ClearSurvive until the timer hits zero. If the Alert meter fills first, you're Spotted! and replay the round with one fewer life.

Camo and Alert

The two meters tell you everything. Camo fills while you stand still and drops almost instantly when you move. Alert rises only while a cone is on you and you're visible, and drains when nobody can see you. Fully lit in a single cone, it fills in about 1.7 seconds.

All the exact numbers are on the rules page.

Points and survival

Fireflies pay 10 points each, and clearing a round pays 100 × the round number. You have 3 lives. Late rounds pay far more than fireflies, so staying alive is the real score engine. The tips page shows how.