Fettle Merge

The shop opens at eight and the tickets start coming before the kettle boils. The crates on the shelf hold what stock there is, and only paid tickets bring more.

A merge-2 workshop: tap crates for items, merge pairs up eight-step ladders and fill tickets that restock the crates. No energy, no waiting.

Tap a supply crate on the shelf and the item showing in its open lid hops onto the nearest free cell of the bench. Drag an item onto an identical one and the two become the next item of that line: two twigs make a log, two logs a plank, up to eight steps per line. Tickets pegged above the bench ask for one item, two items of two lines, or the same item twice; drag an item onto the ticket that wants it, or tap the ticket to hand in everything it wants that is on the bench. The crates share one stock, shown at the top: every tap takes one, and every paid ticket restocks the crates by about what it should have cost. Each ticket has a rush bar counted in taps; paid before the bar runs out, it restocks in full, pays half again in coins and keeps your streak going, while a late ticket restocks less than half. Moving, merging, handing in and dropping things in the scrap basket cost nothing, and no clock runs. The shift ends when the stock is gone and no ticket can be finished from what is on the bench. Merges never split, so a pair merged one step too far may be of no use to the next ticket. More crates arrive as the shift goes on and every crate gives bigger items later in the shift; every fourth ticket of a rush streak puts a polish tin on the bench that raises any item one step. Journey mode has 30 stages in five workshops with parcels on the bench that open when you merge next to them.