How to play Desk Duty
The coffee break ran long. You are the one in the red tie, and every colleague on the floor has to end up back at a desk. You can push a colleague one square at a time, but you can’t pull them, and one shove into a corner can leave someone stranded for good.
There are 15 floors, from First Coffee (one colleague, three moves) to Friday, 16:59. Each one pays, and a quick clear pays more. Spend the pay in the supply cupboard on a cart, a hook or a hammer: shortcuts out of the dead ends, never a requirement. Every floor can be cleared without them.
Rules
- Walk up, down, left or right. Walk into a colleague and you push them one square, as long as the square beyond is free floor. You can push one person at a time and never pull.
- The floor is clear when every colleague sits at a desk. A colleague pushed into a corner without a desk can’t be moved again without a perk.
- The clock starts with your first move and counts only while the page is open. Each floor pays $25 per desk, plus $50 for finishing within the time shown beside the clock, less $1 for every second past it. Restarting doesn’t reset the clock.
- Your earnings add up your best pay on each floor, so a replay can only raise them, and it pays only the rise. Earnings are your score. Cash is earnings less what you have spent.
- The cart: shove the colleague in front of you and they roll until a partition, a coffee machine or another colleague stops them. Mind that they don’t roll past their desk.
- The hook: reel in the first colleague in a straight line until they stand next to you. If they are already next to you, you step back and pull them one square. It is the simplest way to get someone off a wall.
- The hammer: knock down the partition in front of you. The outer walls of the floor and the coffee machines can’t be knocked down.
- You start with one of each. More cost $30, $50 and $80. Undo or a restart hands back a perk used on the floor in hand; once the floor is clear, the perks used there are gone.
Controls
- Arrows / WASD
- Walk, and push the colleague in front of you
- Click / tap a floor square
- Walk there by the shortest route (it never pushes anyone)
- Tap a colleague next to you
- Push them one square
- C / H / B
- Take out the cart, the hook or the hammer, then pick a direction
- Swipe
- One step, or a perk’s direction; phones also get an on-screen pad
- U / Z / Ctrl+Z
- Undo, as many moves as you like
- R twice
- Restart the floor
- Enter / Space
- Next floor after a clear
Tips
- Look before the first move: the clock is running, but a plan saves more seconds than fast hands.
- Before each push, ask where that colleague goes next. A corner without a desk is a trap.
- Keep the hook for the colleague you pushed against a wall by mistake; it is cheaper than a hammer and saves a restart.
- An outlined square shows where a perk would work when it is out, in each direction it can be used.
Desk Duty strategy
Reading the clock
The time allowed on each floor is 30 seconds plus 0.6 seconds for every move of the shortest solution, rounded up to five seconds: 35 seconds on the first floor, 85 on the last. That is about twice what fast, sure hands need, so most of it is thinking time. The bonus loses a dollar a second after that, so being 20 seconds late still keeps $30 of it, and the $25 per desk is paid however long you take.
When a perk pays for itself
A hook costs $50, the whole on-time bonus. It pays when the alternative is restarting a big floor halfway through, not to save a few steps. The cart, at $30, is best on long, open runs: line the colleague up with their desk at the end of a corridor, so they stop on it against the far wall. The hammer is the dearest at $80, and opens a short cut through a partition that would otherwise cost a long walk round every time.
Dead positions
Without perks, the classic box-pushing traps apply. A colleague in a corner without a desk can never move again. Two colleagues side by side along a wall with no desks there are stuck together. A colleague against a wall can only slide along it, so a desk must lie on that stretch. The hook undoes the first and the last of these; the hammer can open the corner. Undo is free and hands back any perk, so try a line and step back.
Replays and full pay
A replay pays only the rise over your best on that floor, so the most money comes from clearing each floor once, on time. The filled diamond in the floor list marks a floor already paid in full. Earnings, the score, are capped at $2,125 across the fifteen floors.
Questions
Do I have to buy perks?
No. Every floor can be cleared by pushing alone; the solver that checked them used no perks. Perks save time, and time is money on the clock.
What happens to my money if I replay a floor?
A replay pays only how much it beats your best pay there, so cash can’t be farmed from the first floor. Your earnings, the score, can only go up.
Is my progress saved?
Yes, in this browser: cash, perks, cleared floors and the floor you are on, with the clock.
