#game

Pack the USA

A US version of the Japanese web game 「都道府県ゲーム」 (pref-pack). It is not affiliated with or endorsed by its makers.

A physics packing puzzle with the 50 US states. States drop into a box one at a time, shaped like the real map. Two states that share a border stick together when they touch, and snap into their real places on the map. Fill the box without letting it overflow, and join all 50 states into one USA.

How to Play

1. Press PLAY on the title screen.
2. The next state hovers above the box. Move the pointer (or drag on a phone) to aim, and let go / click to drop it. On a keyboard, ← → aim, Space / Enter / ↓ drop and hold S to shuffle.
3. When two neighbouring states touch, they join into one piece in their real map layout. A joined piece keeps growing as more neighbours touch it.
4. 🫨 SHUFFLE shakes the box like the original game. The side walls really swing left and right 3 times in 1 second, and every piece is kicked upward, the lightest highest, with a second, half-strength kick 0.45 s later. Hold the button (or S) to charge: a meter fills the button, and holding it for 1 second doubles the power, which is the maximum. There is no cooldown, so each press restarts the shake.
5. Alaska 🐻 and Hawaii 🌺 have no land border, so they stick to Washington and California. Once joined they sit in their usual inset spots at the bottom left, as on most US maps and the answer map.
6. OVERFLOW: a piece that sticks out above the box rim ends the game. The red dashed line is only a warning. Pieces still falling in don't count. A piece kicked up by a shake is safe for 2.5 seconds, but a piece that was already above the rim gets no new grace.
7. When all 50 states have been dropped (+1,000), a 20-second countdown starts. Make one USA before it hits zero, or it's TIME UP!
8. USA COMPLETE! All 50 states form one piece (+10,000).
9. On the result screen, PLAY AGAIN restarts and HOME returns to the title.

Scoring

• Joining: the new piece's size n × n × 10 (e.g. 2 states = 40, 10 states = 1,000).
• Region complete (all states of a region in one piece): 100 per state. Regions: New England, Mid-Atlantic, Great Lakes, Great Plains, South Atlantic, Deep South, South Central, Mountain West, West Coast (US Census divisions).
• All 50 dropped +1,000 · USA complete +10,000.

Features

• Real map data: the outlines come from the US Census Bureau state boundaries, via the us-atlas package (Albers USA projection). The data was simplified and is embedded in the file, so the game needs no map download.
• Exact neighbours: two states are neighbours only if they share a land border in the data. The Four Corners diagonals (AZ–CO, UT–NM) touch only at a point, so they don't count. Washington DC is folded into Maryland. Alaska–Washington and Hawaii–California are added as sea links.
• Big when alone, true size when joined: a lone state is drawn bigger than the map scale. Big states get about 1.15×, mid-sized ones about 1.5×, and the tiniest up to 3× (RI, DE, CT); Hawaii is capped at 2×. When states join, the piece shrinks smoothly. The more states it holds, the closer it gets to true scale (e.g. 1.58× → 1.48× → 1.41× …). From 8 states on it is true scale, so a finished USA fits the box exactly. Tiny states also get a small round bumper so they can't slip through gaps.
• Answer map: press and hold the small map in the middle of the HUD (or hold M) to show a big map with every state's emoji and full name (two-word names on two lines). Let go and it closes. It pops up at once with no animation and doesn't darken the game, which keeps running underneath.
• NEXT card: shows the next state's shape filling the card (small states enlarged), with its emoji and name underneath.
• Like the original: the second piece always borders the first. After that, 60% of draws border something already in the box. A joined piece looks for free room nearby (or straight up) before it appears, so it never explodes out of the pile.
• State emoji and names: every piece shows its emoji and full state name (two-word names on two lines; small states' names spill past their edges). AL 🚀 AK 🐻 AZ 🌵 AR 💎 CA 🎬 CO 🏔️ CT 🍕 DE 🐔 FL 🐊 GA 🍑 HI 🌺 ID 🥔 IL 🌭 IN 🏎️ IA 🌽 KS 🌻 KY 🐎 LA 🎷 ME 🦞 MD 🦀 MA 🎓 MI 🚗 MN 🛶 MS 🐟 MO 🍖 MT 🦬 NE 🌾 NV 🎰 NH 🍂 NJ 🎡 NM 🌶️ NY 🗽 NC ✈️ ND 🛢️ OH 🌰 OK 🏈 OR 🌲 PA 🔔 RI ⚓ SC 🌴 SD 🐦 TN 🎸 TX 🤠 UT 🐝 VT 🍁 VA 🏛️ WA 🍎 WV ⛏️ WI 🧀 WY ♨️
• HUD: on the left, the score with 👑 BEST (the most states ever joined into one piece, n/50) under it, two pills (🧩 states dropped /50, 🇺🇸 biggest piece /50). In the middle, a small faded map of the USA with a clear 🔍 on top. On the right, the NEXT card.
• Title screen: a self-playing demo drops states into the box behind the logo and three short rules: 🧲 Neighbors stick together · 🚫 Don't o