“The steel ball is on the house,
the laser takes three rounds of saving”
(Dusk, a supply shop next to a demolition site. Behind the counter, the shopkeeper flips through his ledger. This script plays BlockMaster’s item screen, continue option and bonus game as a conversation between a customer and the shopkeeper. The lines are made up; the values, levels and wording in each “In the ledger” box come straight from the source.)
The BlockMaster ball shop is where you buy special balls with coins. It runs on some odd rules: the plain steel ball is always free, the expensive balls stay locked on the shelf until you reach a certain level, and you can hold only three of any one kind. Why was it built that way, and where do the coins come from? Follow along as a customer and the shopkeeper talk it through.
The front of the shelf is free
Scene 1 Supply shop · in front of the shelf
(The customer opens the ITEM screen and the cards slide up in rows. The first card’s buy button is greyed out.)
Customer Why does the first steel ball have no price? You’re not selling it, so why put it on display?
Shopkeeper It’s there for comparison. To pick what to buy, you need to see what you can use without buying anything. And it never runs out.
The ITEM screen: Steel sits first and every other card carries a price. The green bar at the top is the coin refill.
- The shop shelf has twelve slots, and the steel ball is first. Its price is 0 and its buy button is locked.
- Its description reads “No tricks at all. Always free, never runs out.”
- The reason, from a source comment: the game ends the moment you can’t play without money. Even with an empty wallet, the round keeps rolling.
No credit, and the key is your level
Scene 2 Same shelf · the lower slots
(The customer points at an expensive ball on the bottom row. Instead of a price it says “Lv” and a number.)
Customer I want the Laser, but it shows a level instead of a price?
Shopkeeper Can’t sell it yet. If you buy the answer before you learn which ball works on which material, the fun of the game is gone. So I don’t hide it, I lock it. You’ve got to see what you want to feel like saving up for it.
| Ball | Unlocks at level | Price (coins) |
|---|---|---|
| Ice | 3 | 25 |
| Drill | 6 | 35 |
| Multi | 10 | 45 |
| Bomb | 14 | 75 |
| Magnet | 19 | 55 |
| Sonic | 21 | 60 |
| Ghost | 24 | 65 |
| Blade | 27 | 70 |
| Quake | 30 | 90 |
| Wrecker | 36 | 105 |
| Laser | 42 | 125 |
- Prices follow how wide a ball’s use is, not how strong it is. That is why Bomb costs more than Magnet yet unlocks sooner.
- Sonic and Blade unlock around the time sand, tempered glass and clay start appearing, so you meet a material with no answer first and get the answer afterwards.
- Prices were raised twice. One well-cleared round now buys about one mid-tier ball, and the Laser takes two or three rounds of saving.
Three of a kind, no more
Scene 3 Supply shop · shelf · just before firing
(The customer packs balls into a sack. On the launcher tray, balls sit in two rows.)
Customer I’ll stock up on ten Bombs.
Shopkeeper Three. The cap is three per kind.
Customer Then I’d just fill up on the strongest ones every time, right?
Shopkeeper That would harden the answer into “the two strongest” every round. With three you start rationing. Picking the same ball twice is allowed, though: two Lasers works.
When a round starts you choose from the balls you own. Whatever you bought in the shop shows up on this tray.
- At most 3 of each kind. A full stack can’t be bought again.
- The steel ball always counts as three, and it doesn’t shrink after use.
- The prompt at round start is “Choose 2 balls” (the number follows how many slots are left).
When the coins run short
Scene 4 Shop · night · after half the lights go out
(The customer’s wallet is empty. A single green button glows on the counter.)
Customer I’m out of coins. If I keep watching ads, the coins never run out, right?
Shopkeeper Ten a day. A hundred coins each, so a thousand. It was unlimited once, and I took it back. When ads become a coin faucet, clear rewards, the bonus game and thinking about what to spend lose their meaning.
Customer But with airplane mode on, the button disappears.
Shopkeeper Press it where no ad will load and it looks broken, or the reward goes out with no ad. Both are bad, so I hide it outright. It comes back when you reconnect.
- The button reads “Watch ad for 100 coins”. 100 coins per ad, up to 10 ads a day.
- Without a connection the button is hidden. It is hidden rather than locked because a locked button leaves the player wondering “why won’t it work?”
While the tower still stands
Scene 5 Demolition site · after the third shot
(The tower is still standing and “GAME OVER” appears. Three buttons sit underneath.)
Customer Ugh, I was so close…
Shopkeeper You’ve got two ways out. Watch an ad, or pay with the coins you’ve saved. The price creeps up with your level, and it has a cap.
GAME OVER: One more shot (ad), One more shot (coins) and RETRY. The coin button carries a price tag on its corner.
After choosing One more shot: “Free shot · pick any ball”. It doesn’t have to be the steel ball.
- The price is 120 + level x 4, rounded to the nearest 10 and clamped to 120-350. (The old formula in a source comment, 150 + level x 6, sat outside the wallet’s reach and was changed. The code is what counts.)
- The point isn’t to collect money; it’s to make “watch an ad or spend my coins?” a real decision each time. The price is set inside the band where a wallet rises and falls.
- The on-screen line “% short of the goal” tells you how far you fell short.
The 10-second shop that opens every five rounds
Scene 6 Demolition site · night · bonus game
(The tower and the sky are gone, and blocks and balls rain down. The customer taps them with a finger.)
Customer What is this? Blocks are falling from the sky!
Shopkeeper A ten-second shop freebie that comes once every five rounds. A block is worth one coin, a ball is worth five. Tap the balls first.
The bonus game: tap the falling blocks and balls to collect coins.
- The prompt reads “(Tap the falling blocks)”. When it ends: “BONUS GAME OVER”.
- It opens every five rounds (win or lose, counted by rounds) and lasts 10 seconds.
- A block is 1 coin and a ball is 5. Balls are pricier, faster and rarer, which is where the “balls first” priority comes from.
- The breakdown line reads “Blocks N × 1 · Balls N × 5”, so you can work out the ball value yourself.
- It must work without watching an ad, so “Claim” is the baseline and the double is a bonus.
One steel ball
is the seed money for the next laser
(The lights go out. At the shop door the customer shakes the wallet once. The shopkeeper tosses over a steel ball.) “This one’s on the house.”
Play BlockMaster now
Playing it is much faster than reading about it.
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