a myth in thirty threads
Moirai
Atropos has begun to cut early. Take her shears.
Cut a thread with a tap · Space slows the measure · Esc pauses
The Four Acts
Act I
Chapter 1
How to cut
- Tap a thread to sever it. A soul keeps the speed it had at that instant — so the whole game is the instant.
- Watch the swing. Every vessel waits at one end of an arc. Let the soul come to the mouth, then cut as it turns.
- Match the rune. A soul may only fall into the vessel that carries its own mark. The wrong vessel is the same as the dark.
- Knots take two cuts. The first frays, the second severs.
- Mind the garden. Briars and blades unmake a soul on contact; the bellows push hanging threads sideways.
- Slow the measure. Space slows time for three seconds — three times a chapter, and it costs you nothing but the risk of wasting it.
Paused
The loom waits. It is patient; it has cut longer than you have lived.
Play Moirai: The Thread of Fate — a free thread-cutting physics puzzle
Moirai: The Thread of Fate is a free browser physics puzzle game built on the Greek myth of the three Fates. Clotho spins the thread of a life, Lachesis measures it, and Atropos cuts it. Something has gone wrong with the eldest sister: she has begun to cut early, and the souls she frees are falling into the dark instead of crossing to the fields of asphodel. You are her last apprentice, and you have her shears.
Each soul hangs from a thread and swings like a pendulum. Each bronze vessel waits at one end of the arc with a rune cut into its belly. Cut the thread and the soul keeps the momentum it had at that instant — so the game is one question asked thirty different ways: when exactly do you cut?
How to play
- Tap a thread to cut it. On a phone or a desktop, a tap severs the thread nearest your finger; drag across several to cut a chain of them.
- Read the swing. The soul's release speed is the speed it had. Cut at the far end of the arc and it drops almost straight down; cut at the bottom and it flies.
- Deliver every soul. A soul must fall into the vessel that carries its own rune. Dawn into dawn, blood into blood. The wrong vessel is the same as the dark.
- Cut knots twice. Some threads carry a knot — a life given more years than it was measured. The first cut frays, the second severs.
- Survive the garden. Briars and turning blades unmake a soul on contact. From the second act the bellows push hanging threads sideways in a rhythm you can learn.
- Free Ianthe. Thirty chapters, four acts, one priestess hanging above the dark with a single thread left.
The rules, exactly
| Thing | Rule | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Thread | Tap it, or drag across it | Severed at once; the soul keeps its momentum |
| Knotted thread | Two cuts | First frays (red bead), second severs |
| Vessel | Same rune as the soul | Delivered; the rune lights |
| Wrong vessel | Any other rune | The soul is lost, chapter restarts |
| Briar | Touch | The soul is unmade |
| Blade | Touch while turning | The soul is sheared |
| Bellows | Act II onward | A slow sideways push on every hanging thread |
| Sliding nail | Act IV onward | The anchor moves; the arc moves with it |
| Slow measure | Space, three times a chapter | Time runs at a third for three seconds |
| Lose | One soul in the dark | Instant retry, same seed, same loom |
The four acts of the loom
| Act | Chapters | Where you are | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| I · The Spinning Room | 1–8 | Clotho's wheel | One and two nails; you learn the arc and the knot |
| II · The Hall of Measures | 9–16 | Lachesis' long tables | Crowded vessels, knotted threads and the bellows |
| III · The Garden of Forgetting | 17–24 | The briar garden | Briars, turning blades and four souls at once |
| IV · The Throne of Atropos | 25–30 | The eldest sister's seat | Sliding nails, everything at once, and Ianthe |
Why every chapter can be finished
Nothing here is hand-waved. Every chapter is generated from a fixed seed, then solved by a reference solver that runs the same simulation the player runs — the same gravity, the same drag, the same one-hundred-and-twentieth-of-a-second step. A seed is only kept if the solution survives at three different world widths (760, 1000 and 1600 units), so the arc and the vessel keep the same relationship on a phone and on a widescreen monitor. The solver's measured time becomes the par printed in the chapter brief, and the width of the valid cut window must be at least a tenth of a second before a chapter is allowed into the game.
Strategy that actually works
- Cut at the turning, not the falling. A soul released at the end of its arc drops almost straight down — that is how you place one precisely.
- Use the whole arc. When the vessel is far from the nail, let the soul gather speed through the bottom of the swing and release on the rise.
- Two nails is a gift, not a problem. A hammock holds still until you take one nail away. Cut the near nail first and the soul swings on the far one.
- Fray early, sever late. On a knotted thread the first cut has no timing requirement, so spend it while you are still reading the swing.
- Let the slow measure be a rehearsal. Press Space before the moment, not during it: the arc is easier to read when it moves at a third speed.
- Read the bellows. The push is a sine wave. If the soul is drifting away from the vessel, the next half-cycle will bring it back.
Technical notes
Everything is generated: no image is loaded by the game, no audio file is played, no third-party script runs. Threads, souls, vessels, briars and blades are Canvas 2D drawn from the state the simulation steps, and every sound — the drone of the loom, the snip of the shears, the bell of a delivered soul — is synthesised with the Web Audio API. The simulation is deterministic: a fixed seed, a fixed 1/120-second step, no random numbers while you play, which is what makes the reference times honest. Progress and stars live in your own browser under moirai.save.v1. Nothing is uploaded, because there is no server.
Moirai: The Thread of Fate — frequently asked questions
What is Moirai: The Thread of Fate?
It is a free browser physics puzzle built on the Greek myth of the three Fates. Every soul hangs from a thread and swings like a pendulum, and every bronze vessel waits at one end of that arc with a rune cut into its belly. You cut the thread, the soul keeps the momentum it had at that instant, and it either falls into its own vessel or into the dark. Thirty chapters in four acts follow the last apprentice of Atropos down to her throne room to free the priestess Ianthe.
How do you play it?
Tap or click a thread to cut it, or drag across several. The soul is released with whatever speed it had, so the skill is in the instant you choose. Let the thread swing until the soul is over the mouth of its vessel, then cut as it turns. A soul that lands in the wrong vessel, touches a briar, meets a blade or falls off the loom is lost and the chapter restarts. Press Space for a three-second slow measure, R to restart, Esc to pause.
What is a knotted thread?
A knot is a life that was given more years than it was measured. A knotted thread cannot be severed with one cut: the first cut only frays it and a red bead stays on the line, and the second cut severs it. On a two-nail soul this means three or four cuts in total, and the timing of each one still matters.
What are the hazards in the later acts?
Four of them. Briars grow in the Garden of Forgetting and unmake any soul that touches them. Bronze blades turn without rest and shear through a soul the same way. The bellows breathe across the Hall of Measures, pushing hanging souls sideways in a slow rhythm you can read before you cut. And in the throne room the nails themselves slide along the beam, so the arc keeps moving while you aim.
How does scoring work?
Every chapter prints a par time measured by a reference solver that plays with exactly the rules you get. Finish at or under that par for three stars, at or under one and a half times par for two stars, and any win earns one star. Your best stars and unlocked chapters are kept in your own browser, and the par is a measurement rather than an estimate.
Is every chapter actually solvable?
Yes, and it is proven rather than promised. Each chapter is generated from a fixed seed and then solved by the same simulation the player runs, at three different world widths, so the arc and the vessel are in the same relationship on a phone, a tablet and a desktop. Only seeds that pass at all three widths are baked in, and the width of the valid timing window is printed nowhere because it is a measured guarantee of at least a tenth of a second.
What is the Unraveling, and does it work on a phone?
The Unraveling is the endless mode: wave after wave of generated chapters with tighter mouths, more knots and more hazards, and one lost soul ends the run. Everything runs in one HTML5 page with no download, no account and no payment. Pointer, touch and keyboard all work, and the loom re-fits itself from a 320-pixel phone to a widescreen desktop.