4-8 min
Roll and Stick

Roll and Stick

Reaction

Roll a ball around a yard picking up everything smaller than it. Clothes pins buy you mugs, mugs buy you chairs, chairs buy you the car.

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Roll and Stick is a free online rolling and collecting game built on one rule: anything smaller than you sticks to you, and anything bigger stops you dead. You start barely wider than a clothes pin, so pins are all you can take — and taking enough of them makes you wide enough for the mugs, which make you wide enough for the stools, and so on up to a car sitting in the driveway. Growth is by volume rather than width, which is why the first handful of pickups feel enormous and the last few barely move the meter: sticking a small thing onto a big ball adds almost nothing to its radius. A dashed ring around the ball shows exactly what you can lift right now, and anything outlined is something to come back for rather than something to push at. Five yards, from a laundry line to a driveway, each on a clock. No download, no account.

How to play Roll and Stick

  1. Drag anywhere in the yard and the ball rolls toward your finger. Arrow keys or WASD work too.
  2. Rolling over anything smaller than you makes it stick, and the ball gets bigger.
  3. Anything too big simply stops you. It is drawn faded with a dashed outline so you can tell at a glance.
  4. The dashed ring around the ball is your lift limit: everything inside it will stick, everything outside it will not.
  5. Growth is by volume, so two pickups of the same thing do not add the same amount twice — the second one adds less.
  6. The bar under the readout fills toward the size the level asks for, and the notch at the end is the target.
  7. Clear the tier you can lift and the next tier opens. Pins make you big enough for mugs, mugs for stools, and so on.
  8. The ball rolls a little slower the bigger it gets, so the last stretch is about routing rather than speed.
  9. Reach the target size before the clock runs out to clear the yard.
  10. Finishing with plenty of time left is three stars, so a tidy route matters more than a fast one.

Tips

  • Sweep, do not wander. The pins are worth almost nothing individually but they are the only thing that opens the next tier, so hoover up a whole cluster before moving on.
  • Watch the dashed ring, not the objects. The moment it grows past something, that thing became worth collecting.
  • Do not push at anything faded. It will never budge at your current size and you only lose seconds leaning on it.
  • Take the tier you just unlocked before going back for leftovers. A stool is worth about twenty pins, so scraps can wait.
  • Plan a loop rather than an out-and-back. The clock is generous but the ball is slow at the end, and backtracking across the yard costs more than it looks.
  • When two tiers are both liftable, take the bigger one first — it grows the ring faster and may open a third tier while you are still moving.
  • The last few metres of the meter are the slowest, because volume grows as the cube of the radius. If the bar has stalled, you need a bigger class of object, not more small ones.
  • On the driveway, the car is the whole point but it is also the last thing to unlock. Clear every crate before you go anywhere near it.
  • Corners are worth checking early. Props are always laid with room to roll around them, so nothing is ever truly cornered — but the walk back is long.

FAQ

Is Roll and Stick free to play?

Yes. It runs in the browser with no download, no sign-up and nothing to buy. All five yards are included and unlock as you clear them.

Why will this object not stick to me?

Because it is bigger than your lift limit, which is a fixed fraction of your own size. Anything you cannot take is drawn faded with a dashed outline, and the dashed ring around the ball is the limit itself — if the object is not inside that ring, rolling into it will only stop you. Take a smaller class of object first and come back.

Why does the meter slow down so much near the end?

Because the ball grows by volume, not by width. Sticking a mug onto a small ball is a big change in radius; sticking the same mug onto a large ball is almost nothing, since volume goes as the cube of the radius. That is why the answer to a stalled meter is always a bigger class of object rather than more small ones.

Can I get stuck with nothing left that I can pick up?

No, and it is checked rather than hoped for. Every level is walked through its own growth chain before it ships: clear everything you can lift, confirm that opens at least one more class, and repeat all the way to the target. A yard whose object sizes jumped too far somewhere in the middle would be unwinnable and would look completely normal — a full yard where nothing responds — so that case fails the test suite instead of shipping.

Can I get physically trapped by things I cannot move?

No. Objects are laid out with a gap between them sized from the objects themselves rather than from the ball, which matters because the ball grows: a gap that fits you at the start would wedge you later. The only pair that can block you is one where you cannot lift either object, and that puts a ceiling on how big you can be while stuck — so the gap is always wide enough for a ball that small to roll through. Objects are kept off the walls for the same reason.

Is every level actually clearable in the time given?

Yes. A reference driver that simply takes the nearest thing it can lift, steers around what it cannot, and gives up on anything that has stopped getting closer clears all five yards across many layouts, well inside each clock. A driver that never moves times out on all five.

Does chasing the biggest object work?

No, and there is a test for that too. A driver that always heads for the largest thing in sight fails, because it spends the whole clock leaning on objects it cannot lift. Ignoring what will not budge is the actual skill.

Does it work on a phone?

Yes, and dragging is the nicer way to play it. The yard is square so it takes the portrait frame well, and the ball follows your finger — resting your finger on the ball stops it rather than jittering.