The world is a machine. If yours has stopped, start here.
Clockwork: Gridlock is a daily tactics puzzle — one battle a day, no timers, no randomness, no ads. If your question isn't answered below, email games@arkynate.com and we'll get back to you.
What is Clockwork: Gridlock?
One battle per day on a 6×6 board of gears. You command three brass Keywardens against the Unwound — broken automata that telegraph every attack before your turn. Nothing is hidden and nothing is random. Every board has a solution, and the game knows it: each one was verified by an exhaustive solver before it shipped. There are no timers of any kind. The bell counts rounds, not seconds, so you can take as long as you like on any turn.
I don't understand the rules.
Play The Doctrine from the main menu. It is a twelve-lesson tutorial campaign that teaches one idea at a time, and it is free. The most important idea is lesson II: an enemy's telegraph locks a direction, not a target. Shove it, hook it, or sweep it out of line and its blow lands on empty gears — or on its own ally. That is the whole game. You can also tap any unit on the board to read its full card — movement, attack, and doctrine — at any time, mid-puzzle.
What is free and what is paid?
Free, forever, with no advertising: the daily puzzle in all three difficulties, the twelve-lesson Doctrine, the three authored watches, streaks, the calendar, and sharing. Paid, once: "The Long Wind", the campaign. It is a single non-consumable in-app purchase — US$2.99 or the local equivalent — that unlocks every act. There is no subscription, no consumable, no in-game currency, and no second purchase. Acts added in later updates are included at no extra cost. Family Sharing is enabled, so the unlock is available to your family group.
How do I restore a purchase?
Open the main menu and tap Restore Purchases. That asks the App Store directly. If the campaign still shows as locked: • Confirm you are signed into the same Apple Account that made the purchase (Settings → your name → Media & Purchases). • Check your network — the app has to reach the App Store to read the entitlement. • If the purchase is awaiting family approval ("Ask to Buy"), it unlocks by itself the moment it is approved. You do not need to buy again. • Still stuck? Email games@arkynate.com with your Apple Account region and the approximate purchase date. Do not buy a second time — a non-consumable cannot be bought twice, and the App Store will simply restore the first one.
Does my purchase and my progress transfer between devices?
The unlock does — it follows your Apple Account, so restore it on any device you sign into. Progress does not. Solved boards, scores, and streaks are stored locally on the device, and there is no cloud save yet. Deleting the app or clearing site data ends the streak permanently; we have no copy to restore. The privacy policy has the full detail on what is stored where.
What are Easy, Medium and Hard, and when does a new daily arrive?
Easy, Medium and Hard are the same daily board at three pressures. Easy has one fewer foe and every stroke of the bell lands one round later; Hard is the same board with every stroke one round earlier. Each tier is scored and saved separately, so you can play all three. The new puzzle arrives at midnight UTC — one instant flip worldwide, so everyone plays the same board on the same day. The main menu shows the countdown to the next stroke.
I lost my streak.
The Winding survives a single missed day: there is a 48-hour grace window, so a gap of one day keeps the streak. Two days in a row breaks it. Streaks live on your device only. Deleting the app or clearing site data ends the streak permanently and there is no server-side copy to restore from.
I am stuck on a board. Is it even possible?
Yes. Every puzzle in the game — daily, Doctrine, authored, and campaign — was verified by an exhaustive solver before it shipped. If a board's stated par is 3, a 3-round solution provably exists. Two tools, both free: • Undo is unlimited and costs you nothing but a small score deduction. Take a move back, look again, try the other order — the order you activate your wardens in is itself part of the puzzle. • Tip walks you the optimal line one action at a time. It is not a guess; it reads from the machine-proven solution that shipped with the board.
A warden died and I did not expect it.
Two rules catch new players. First, rows seize immediately after your phase, and anything standing in a seizing row is Meshed — wardens included. Second, an enemy killed during the attack phase still fires. Killing it does not cancel the blow it already telegraphed; move out of the line instead.
Does the game need an internet connection?
Only to fetch a new daily and to submit a daily result to the leaderboard. The Doctrine, the authored watches, and the campaign are fully playable offline. If the daily fails to fetch, the game falls back to local boards — check your connection and relaunch.
The game will not load, or the board looks wrong.
1. Force-quit and reopen — the layout is chosen at launch from the screen shape. 2. Rotating the device applies on the next launch, by design. 3. On the web version, a hard refresh clears a stale cached build. 4. Make sure you are on the latest build from the App Store. If it still looks wrong, email the device model, the OS version, and a screenshot.
What languages does it support?
Ten: English, 日本語, 한국어, 简体中文, Filipino, Español (Latinoamérica), Português (Brasil), Deutsch, Français and Italiano. Change it with the language button on the main menu. The game plays entirely by tapping and has no timers. If you hit an accessibility barrier, tell us — we treat those as bugs.
How do I delete my data?
Delete the app, or clear site data in your browser. There is no account and no profile to close. See the privacy policy for exactly what is stored, what is sent, and how to have the anonymous records for a specific install removed.
I want a refund.
All purchases go through Apple, so refunds do too. Request one at reportaproblem.apple.com and sign in with your Apple Account. We cannot issue or expedite a refund, but tell us what went wrong anyway — if a board is broken, we want to fix it.
I found a bug, or I have a suggestion.
Email games@arkynate.com. For a bug, please include: • Your device and OS version • The puzzle you were on — the title at the top of the board (for example "Act I — The Gallery Floors 3"), or the daily's date and difficulty • What you expected to happen, and whether it reproduces • A screenshot or screen recording if you have one Puzzle reports are especially welcome: an unbalanced day, a par you think is wrong, a translation that reads badly, a move you think should have worked.
Contact
games@arkynate.com — we read every message. Best-effort response within a few days; Clockwork: Gridlock is a one-person project, so please be patient.