Arcade Whale
Arcade Whale OriginalMade in-house, free to play
Tape Match 3D
- Developer
- Arcade Whale
- Genre
- Match-3
- Released
- Updated
- Platforms
- Browser (desktop, mobile, tablet)
- Orientation
- Portrait or landscape
- Players
- Single player
How to play
Desktop A/D/W/S turn the parcel · Q/E next free strip · Space peel · −/+ zoom
Touch Drag
About Tape Match 3D
Tape Match 3D puts a wrapped parcel in front of you and asks you to unwrap it in the right order. Strips of coloured tape run across every face, and you peel them into a tray, clearing three of a colour at a time.
The three-dimensional part is not decoration. Only some strips are peelable at any moment — a strip pinned under another cannot be pulled — and the ones you need are frequently on the face you cannot see. Rotating the parcel to find the third strip of a colour before your tray fills is the loop the whole game runs on.
The tray is the constraint, exactly as in the tile-sorting games this borrows from. Peel greedily and it fills with singles of five different colours, and then nothing can be cleared and you are stuck with the parcel still half wrapped. Peel deliberately, completing colours as you go, and the tray stays workable.
A timer runs throughout, which changes the calculation from the untimed sorters. You cannot spend a minute rotating the parcel looking for a perfect move; sometimes the right choice is a merely acceptable peel taken quickly. Two tools help — a magnet that pulls a matching strip, and an extra tray slot for when you have over-committed.
Drag to rotate the parcel, pinch or scroll to zoom, and tap a glowing strip to peel it. It runs in the browser on both desktop and mobile, with no install. If you like the sorting pressure but want it without a clock, SortStack and ArrowSort 3D are the calmer relatives.
Drag to rotate, pinch or scroll to zoom, tap a glowing strip to peel it. On a keyboard: WASD or arrows turn the parcel, Q and E jump to the next free strip, Space peels, M magnet, N add slot. Desktop and mobile.
Every level is a named parcel, starting with First Peel, and clearing one hands you the next straight away. The first parcel has three taped faces and two colours, with a seven-slot tray. From the sixth level the tray drops to six slots and the colour count climbs to six, while the clock stretches from 45 seconds on the first parcel to over three minutes on the big ones. After Final Seal the parcels keep coming: Express, Overnight and Priority deliveries reuse the toughest wrappings with a little more frost and a few more hidden colours each round, so the level number just keeps climbing. The win card shows your time left and your best on that parcel.
Three special kinds of tape arrive one at a time. Level 4 adds wrap bands that run over an edge of the parcel and sit on top of the strips on both faces, pinning them until the band is gone. Level 5 adds frosted strips: the first tap cracks the ice and only the second tap peels. Level 6 adds grey strips marked with a question mark, which hide their colour until nothing is pinning them. Later levels mix all three on the same parcel.
Frequently asked questions
How do I clear tape strips?
Tap a glowing strip to peel it into your tray. Once three strips of the same colour are in the tray they clear together and free up the space.
Why can I not peel some strips?
A strip that is pinned underneath another cannot be peeled until the one on top is removed. Only strips that are free will glow, and you will often need to rotate the parcel to reach them.
How do I rotate and zoom?
Drag to rotate the parcel and pinch or scroll to zoom. Rotating is essential, since the strip you need is frequently on a face you cannot currently see.
What happens if my tray fills up?
A Stuck card appears. While you still have a free extra slot left it offers one so you can carry on, or you can replay the level. Filling the tray with single strips of many different colours is the usual cause, so completing colours as you go rather than peeling whatever is easiest is what keeps you alive.
Does Tape Match 3D run out of levels?
No. The levels come one after another, and after the last hand-made parcel the game keeps dealing new ones built from the toughest wrappings, each round with a little more frosted and hidden tape. Your progress is saved, so you always pick up at the furthest parcel you have reached. Replay on the win card lets you go again at a parcel to beat your best time left.
What are the frosted and grey strips?
A frosted strip is frozen in place: tap it once to crack the ice, then tap it again to peel it, and the magnet skips it while it is frozen. A grey strip with a question mark hides its colour until no other tape is pinning it, so you only find out what it is once it is free to peel.
What happens when the timer runs out?
A Time's up card appears. Every level gives you one or two free extensions of 30 seconds that let you carry on exactly where you were. Once those are used you can replay the level from the start.
How do the magnet and extra slot work?
The magnet peels a free strip for you, picking one that completes a set if it can, or else one that pairs with a strip already in the tray. The plus button adds a tray slot, up to nine in total. Each level gives one to three of each for free.
