Hephaestus forged Talos out of bronze and gave him to Europa, so that the sea would never take her twice in one lifetime. Then Medea whispered that Europa had already been taken — and the giant, who had never been given a way to tell a rumour from a fact, bolted every plate of himself shut with her still inside.
You are the fitter the Chalkeia leaves on the beach every year, with a wrench and no instructions. Turn every bolt. Drop every plate into the bloom that matches its metal. And do not once set a bolt down on the rail.
0 / 30 chapters cleared
The giant, chapter by chapter
The giant waits
Paused
The tide does not come in while you are standing here. Nothing in a chapter can fail you except a bolt you set down on the rail.
How to play
Turn bolts. Tap a bolt and it spins out. If its metal matches the open bronze bloom, it flies straight in; if it does not, it goes onto the rail. The bloom at the front of the queue is the only one taking bolts.
Plates fall when they are empty. A plate lets go the moment every bolt in it is out — and only then is whatever it was covering reachable. The screws of the plate underneath are already there, waiting to be revealed.
Never fill the rail. The rail is the bench beside the blooms. A full rail is not a loss on its own, but turning a bolt that has nowhere to go is: that one move ends the chapter. Every chapter can be finished with an empty rail.
Seized bolts take two turns — one to break the salt, one to walk the thread out. Frozen bolts will not turn until an ember is spent, and a plate gives you one ember when it falls. A chained plate hangs there with every bolt out of it until the plate it is bound to has gone first.
The ichor nail is the deepest bolt in the chapter, and it is what finishes it. You do not have to take the giant apart completely — only far enough to reach the nail.
Three stars. One for reaching the nail. One for a clean dismantle: not one bolt set down on the rail. One for carrying the chapter's relic bolt out with no hints spent.
Keyboard: H hint · U undo · R restart · Esc pause · M mute
The forge ledger
Chapter 30 cleared
The giant kneels
Talos Unbound: The Brazen Giant — a free screw and bolt puzzle game built on Greek myth
Talos Unbound: The Brazen Giant is a free browser-based screw puzzle, played one armour plate at a time. Talos, the bronze giant Hephaestus forged to guard Europa, has bolted himself shut with her inside him after Medea whispered that she had already been taken; a fitter from the bronze-workers' festival has to unscrew him plate by plate before he reaches deep water. Tap a bolt to turn it out and it flies into the open bronze bloom when the metal matches, or onto the rail when it does not; when a plate has no bolts left it falls away and reveals the plate beneath it, and the chapter ends when the deepest bolt — the ichor nail — comes out.
How to play
Turn bolts. Tap a bolt and it spins out. If its metal matches the open bronze bloom, it flies straight in; if it does not, it goes onto the rail. The bloom at the front of the queue is the only one taking bolts.
Plates fall when they are empty. A plate lets go the moment every bolt in it is out — and only then is whatever it was covering reachable.
Never fill the rail. The rail is the bench beside the blooms. A full rail is not a loss on its own, but turning a bolt that has nowhere to go is: that one move ends the chapter.
Work down to the ichor nail. The nail is the deepest bolt in the chapter, and reaching it is what finishes it. You do not have to take the giant apart completely.
The four acts
Act
Chapters
Where
What changes
The Ankle Plates
1–8
The shore at Kydonia
Small plates, plain bolts, the giant still walking.
The Verdigris Forge
9–16
The thigh and the hip
Seized bolts take two turns; the first chained plates appear.
The Ichor Lines
17–24
The torso
Frozen bolts that need an ember; two chains at a time.
The Chest of Europa
25–30
The chest, and the cage in it
Nine plates of chest, three chains, and the Titan's nail.
Rules at a glance
Mechanic
What it does
What it costs
Seized bolt
Corroded; the first turn only breaks the salt
Two taps instead of one
Frozen bolt
Will not turn until it has been thawed
One ember
Ember
Thaws one frozen bolt
Given up by each plate that falls
Chained plate
Hangs empty until the plate it is bound to has gone
Waiting, and the order you pick
Relic bolt
A marked bolt carried out clean
Worth the third star with no hints spent
Why this one is different from other screw puzzles
Most screw puzzles are a tray of loose screws. Talos Unbound is an occlusion puzzle: the plates are physical objects lying on top of each other, a bolt only exists while the plate that holds it is exposed, and every plate you take away changes which bolts you can reach next. The rail turns the genre's usual parking-jam pressure into one clean rule — a bolt set down is a bolt dropped — and the chapter generator proves a clean dismantle is always possible before the chapter is allowed to ship.
Frequently asked questions
What is Talos Unbound: The Brazen Giant?
It is a free browser screw-and-bolt puzzle built on Greek myth. Talos, the bronze giant Hephaestus made to guard Europa, has bolted himself shut with her inside him, and a fitter from the bronze-workers' festival has to unscrew him plate by plate before he reaches deep water. Thirty chapters across four acts, plus an endless forge that sends a new giant every cycle.
How do you play a chapter?
Tap a bolt to turn it out. It flies into the open bronze bloom if the metal matches, and onto the rail if it does not. When every bolt in a plate is out, the plate falls away, and whatever it was covering is revealed. Work down to the chapter's ichor nail and the chapter is over.
What happens if the rail fills up?
Nothing, until you try to turn a bolt that has nowhere to go: that single move is what fails a chapter. The rail is the bench beside the blooms, and a bolt on it is a bolt you had to set down. Every chapter is generated so that a clean dismantle with nothing on the rail is possible, and the second star is for finding it.
What are seized, frozen and chained bolts?
A seized bolt is corroded and takes two turns: one to break the salt, one to walk the thread out. A frozen bolt will not turn at all until an ember has been spent on it, and embers are what a plate gives you when it falls, so the giant pays for his own dismantling. A chained plate will hang there with every bolt out of it until the plate it is bound to has already gone.
Is every chapter really solvable, and is par a real number?
Yes to both, and neither is a claim. Each chapter is built from its seed by laying the plates down, reading a valid dismantling order off the occlusion graph, and only then handing out the metals along that order. The recorded plan is replayed through the same engine your finger uses before the chapter is allowed to ship, and par — the tap count — is measured from that replay rather than estimated.
Does it work on a phone, and does it need a download?
There is no download, no install and no account: it is one HTML5 page that runs in the browser on desktop, tablet and phone, down to a 320-pixel screen. The whole board is one fixed field that scales into whatever box you give it, so a wide, short player and a tall phone both show the entire giant. Stars, relics and the forge ledger are kept in your own browser.
Technical notes
One page, no build step, no external requests: the art is Canvas 2D drawn from code, the sound is WebAudio synthesised, and the only file the game ships besides code and text is the cover image. Everything is generated from a seed, so a chapter is the same chapter on every device. Controls: tap or click a bolt; H for a hint, U to undo, R to restart, Esc to pause, M to mute. It runs on desktop, tablet and phone in any modern browser with no download, no install and no account, and progress is stored in your own browser.