How to play

10 Million Cells is easy to start and has a lot underneath. This guide covers everything the game teaches you in its first hour, and a few things it leaves you to find out.

The basics

Balls break the cells of the field and every broken cell earns pixels. You spend pixels on more balls and on upgrades. Under the rock are pictures; dig them free and they go to your Gallery. Find a chapter's eight pictures and the next chapter opens.

Controls

Hold an empty space to open the wheel. Slide to a ball and lift to choose it, then drag to aim and lift to launch. Lift near where you started to cancel. Hold a block to see what it is and what it is worth. Drag the field to look around and pinch to zoom.

Marks, lines and mirrors

From the same wheel you can drop a Mark, and the whole fleet works toward it. Draw a line instead and the fleet spreads along the line, working it from both ends. A mirror is a wall your balls bounce off until it is mined away. Drift hides the interface and leaves the fleet to work while you watch.

Buying and upgrading

Every ball has four upgrades. Cell damage lets it hit tougher rock and remove more cell health per impact. Refinement makes every cell it breaks worth more. Momentum makes it move faster, so it touches more rock in the same minute. The fourth upgrade is its own, such as more beams for the Prism or a wider crater for the Bloom.

Standing orders

The fleet works under one standing order, and you can switch at any time. Eager hits 35% harder and moves 30% faster, and is strongest on soft rock. Patient makes dense rock count four times softer, so balls dig it about 2.3 times as well as under Eager. Watchful reveals 14 cells around each opening instead of 6, at the cost of weaker, slower hits.

Eager: Strongest on soft rock: balls hit 35% harder and move 30% faster. Reveal radius stays 6 cells.
Patient: Dense rock counts 4× softer, so balls dig it about 2.3× as well as under Eager. Everywhere else they hit 22% weaker and move 20% slower. Reveal radius 6 cells.
Watchful: Reveals 14 cells around each opening instead of 6, but balls hit 12% weaker and move 5% slower.

Rings and pictures

The field is laid out in eight rings, each harder and richer than the one inside it. In Classic every ring has a mural, and the next ring stays sealed until you recover it. Every finished mural adds a permanent 15% to everything you gather, and every new kind of find in the Cells collection adds 2%.

Chapters and grounds

When a chapter ends, the next one is a fresh ten million cells on different ground. You start again with one Drifter and a purse of pixels carried over. Grounds change the rules: Rich Ground has seams everywhere, Hollow Ground has a current that carries the fleet, Overgrown Ground grows back. From chapter 13 a ground condition can make rock denser, looser, richer or worth a bounty.

Letting the field settle

When digging and upgrading start to feel slow, the game suggests letting the field settle. You start again on fresh rock with one Drifter, and you lose the map, the balls, the upgrades and the pixels you are holding. In return every cell you destroy afterwards pays more, for the rest of the chapter. Resonance builds up each time.

While you are away

The field never digs itself while the game is closed. Instead the fleet earns pixels for up to two hours after you last collected, at 20% of your rate. Each level of the Nightwork upgrade adds 5%, up to 60%. You can watch a short film to double what you collect.

Six worlds

Classic Balls break blocks and earn pixels. Spend pixels on more balls and upgrades.
Constellation One picture is split into eight pieces hidden around the map.
Depths Use your balls to break blocks and dig down through the map.
Bloom & Rot Your goal is to turn the ground green, one area at a time.
Bloom the World Start on a gray map. Your balls clear blocks and turn the ground green.
The Golden Tile Somewhere in the rock lies one golden tile. It hides in a new place every time a chapter starts.

Tips for digging faster