How to play Brinebell

A visual guide · Make your first delivery, read seats and patience, and plan queued crossings and Bank.

Your goal

Little crossings. Happy landings.

Send island ferries where their passengers want to go. Match destinations, make room aboard and collect points for happy arrivals. Keep sailing for as long as you like, then bank your run.

These are simplified teaching diagrams. The bay runs in real time during play. Your game waits while you read this guide.

One bay, five numbered docks

You begin with docks 1–3 and Ferry A. Lantern, Windmill and Ferry B join as more passengers arrive. The diagram shows the complete bay.

01Make your first happy landing

Before: two passengers board at Bell Quay

Choose Start Sailing. The first passengers board Ferry A automatically, one for dock 2 and one for dock 3. Let the short boarding stop finish, then choose dock 2.

After: one passenger reaches Orchard

A prompt first crossing delivers the passenger for dock 2: 100 base points plus 40 for high patience. The rider for dock 3 stays aboard. The picture omits any new arrivals.

Click or tap a ferry’s A or B control, then a numbered dock. With focus in the game, A or B selects a ferry and 1–5 chooses a dock. Closed docks and the unavailable second ferry cannot be selected.
Passengers leave automatically at their destination before new riders board. Each stop exchanges passengers once. If more arrive while the ferry waits, choose that same dock again for another boarding stop.
Use P or Pause to stop the harbour; use Resume or Keep Playing to continue. Help and Passenger list also pause it. Tab reaches buttons, and Enter or Space activates the focused button.

02Read destinations and leave room

Four seats on each ferry

Ferry seat numbers are rider destinations. On a dock, 3×2 means two waiting passengers want dock 3, not six seats. The small cart symbol warns that the group includes a two-seat market cart.

Travellers and couriers use one seat. Market carts use two. Boarding follows arrival order, but skips a cart that cannot fit so a later one-seat passenger can board.
The ring shows the lowest patience in that destination group. Couriers start with less patience and carts with more. Open Passenger list for individual destinations, types and time left.
Patience falls twice as fast at a dock as it does aboard. A waiting passenger whose patience runs out takes the shore launch: one service pip goes and your delivery streak resets. Riders already aboard still reach their destination, even at zero patience.

03Plan the next crossing

Finish this route, queue the next

While A sails to 2, choosing 3 queues the next crossing. Another choice replaces that queued order. Choosing the current destination, 2, clears the next order. A sailing ferry never turns around mid-crossing.

Use both ferries when B arrives. Group riders going to the same dock, then look for waiting passengers near the landing. Routes connect any open docks; they do not have to follow the shoreline.

04Keep the bay moving, then bank your points

Base points are 100 for a traveller, 160 for a courier and 180 for a cart. At delivery, at least two thirds of patience left adds 40; at least one third adds 20.
Each extra passenger delivered at the same stop adds 40. Two high-patience travellers together earn 140 + 140 + 40 = 320 before the streak multiplier.
Eight consecutive deliveries raise later landing scores to ×2; sixteen raise them to ×3. The multiplier for a stop is the one you had before that stop. Every 20 deliveries adds another 300 points outside the multiplier.
The five-dock, two-ferry harbour continues indefinitely at a steady maximum traffic rate. There is no final stage or whole-run timer.
Bank Run asks for confirmation and keeps points already earned. Keep Playing cancels. Five waiting departures also finish the run; unfinished trips earn no extra points. Play Again starts fresh and Menu returns to the games.
Full screen offers more room where supported; otherwise use Expand game. If the screen becomes too small, your run pauses safely. Closing help restores the previous pause state.

Play Brinebell