RULES
How a round works, how a winner is decided, and what happens when there is a prize. The formal version, in French, is the règlement du jeu.
THE GAME
Everyone taps the same object. It breaks when the counter reaches a hidden number. The person whose tap breaks it wins the round. The broken object stays on the page, open, with what came out of it on show for everyone, until the next round opens, at a time the operator sets and the page announces with a countdown.
TWO SORTS OF EGG
There are two, and one rule separates them. The grand egg — every egg but one — carries a real gift, shown from the first tap. Nothing that can be bought acts on it: not the counter, not any ranking, not who breaks it. A Power level weighs exactly zero there, a ghost hand does not tap at all and spends none of the hours it holds, and while such an egg stands nothing that gives an advantage is even on sale — the server refuses the payment, it is not a greyed-out button. So no purchase raises anyone’s chances of winning the gift, and no purchase that could is possible in the first place. The evening egg carries no gift and cannot carry one: the check made when a round is created refuses to open a round that attaches one. There is nothing of value to win there, and nothing of value is played for — you play it for the fun of it, to be the hand that breaks it, and to sit at the top of its rankings. It is a clicking game, an idle game, and it says so. It does not stop at one: through the evening, a minute after each one breaks, another opens, and each is drawn from a range the game sets from how fast the last one went — so arriving late still means an egg to break, and one fast hand makes the next egg bigger rather than ending everybody's evening. It is also the one egg where what was bought acts, and there it acts on everything: on an evening egg Power weighs your line on every board — the hour, the egg, your country, your team — and it moves the counter itself, so each of your taps counts its weight and you are that much likelier to be the one who breaks it. A ghost hand taps under your name while you are away, with your Power, and it moves the counter too — so you can break an evening egg in your sleep. None of that wins anything: what the breaker gets is their name in the Hall of Fame beside every other break, the Breaker title and a shell in their nest — and nothing else: no money, nothing that can be traded, turned into money or taken off the site. What money buys, and where: Power levels and ghost hours are sold where they do something — while an evening egg is running, and between two eggs when one is coming — and never while a grand egg stands, where the payment is refused outright. Both are given away as well as sold: one level and one ghost hour a day, to any account, free. Everything else on sale is a look or a name, and touches no egg at all.
FREE TO PLAY · NO PURCHASE NECESSARY
Playing is free and needs no account. On a grand egg — the one with the gift — a tap counts one on the counter, on every device, for everyone, unless the player has earned a tap boost by playing (below), and nothing that can be bought changes that: whose tap lands on the hidden number is decided by hands alone, and while such an egg stands nothing that gives an advantage is even on sale. Nothing the game sells is needed to play or to win, and no purchase improves anyone’s odds of winning anything. Where tap boosts run on a grand egg, the page shows them under the counter, to everyone. Every tap a player makes on that egg is kept as energy, and can be spent there on a boost level: at level 1 each of their taps adds 2 to the counter instead of 1, at level 2 it adds 3, and so on. The first level costs 200 taps and each level costs four times the one before. A level is kept until that egg breaks. The price is the player’s own taps on that egg and nothing else: a boost cannot be bought, received, transferred or carried to another egg, and taps made by a machine earn none. One visit to the link of that egg’s sponsor, from the game, adds 1 more to each of the player’s taps until that egg breaks: once per player, free, and open to everyone alike. During a golden minute, announced to everyone thirty seconds ahead, every player’s tap counts double on the counter, boosted or not. A boosted tap is a tap: it may be the one that lands on the hidden number. The same energy also buys a look for that egg, in the shop under the counter: 6,000 taps for one from the season pass, 12,000 for one from the shop. It is worn until that egg breaks and then it is gone; it is not added to the nest, and it is not a look bought with money, which is kept for good. A look changes nothing a tap does, nothing on the counter and nothing in any ranking. It comes out of the same taps as a boost level, so spending on one leaves less for the other: that is the whole of the choice. Looks that are free with feathers are earned there and cannot be had with taps. What is sold acts on the evening egg, which has no gift. There a Power level does move the counter — a tap counts its weight — so a paid hand is likelier to be the one that breaks it. It wins nothing by that: the breaker of an evening egg gets a line in the Hall of Fame and nothing that leaves the site. The two things that do anything are given away as well as sold: one Power level and one ghost hour a day to any account, free.
WHO MAY PLAY
Anyone may tap. Claiming a prize and buying anything are for people who are 18 or over, or who have the agreement of the person responsible for them; it may be asked for before a prize goes out. People who built the game cannot win.
POWER
A player may have Power: a level that makes every one of that player’s taps weigh one more — ×2, ×3, and on with no ceiling, because a level bought is a level held. It is permanent, it stacks, it never expires, and it can be saved behind an email so it follows you across devices. It weighs only on the evening egg, where there is no gift, and there on every board: your line over the last sixty minutes, rolling; your line on this egg, from the moment it goes up until it breaks, then carved on the round’s page; and your country’s and your team’s, which is what puts a country where its people have paid the most. On a grand egg it weighs nothing at all: a powered tap is one click there, on every board alike. On the evening egg, each tap advances the counter by its Power weight and can break that egg. On a grand egg, every tap advances the counter by one, regardless of Power. No prize is ever attached to a ranking. Power does not reveal the hidden number, does not move it, and does not lift the rate limit. An egg with a gift breaks on whichever tap reaches the hidden number, and Power has no say in whose. Levels are sold in five packs — one level, five, fifteen, a hundred, five hundred, the rate improving as the pack grows — and only where they weigh: while an evening egg is running, and between two eggs when one is coming. While a grand egg stands they cannot be bought at all; the server refuses the payment. Every account is also given a level a day with the daily gift, free, so no level has to be paid for. Nothing adds to the prize either way.
THE GHOST HAND
A player with an account may leave a ghost hand: for the hours they have, a stand-in taps under their name, one tap every two seconds, with their Power. It runs on the evening egg only, where there is nothing of value to win: it feeds the hour’s ranking and this egg’s, and it moves the counter exactly as their own thumb would — so a ghost can be the hand that breaks an evening egg, and its person wakes up in the Hall of Fame having won what that egg pays, which is a line on a page. On a grand egg there is no ghost at all: it does not tap, it moves no counter and no ranking, it cannot break anything and cannot win, and none of the hours in its bank are spent — they wait for the next evening egg. It is visible to everyone, a hollow dot on the egg and a 👻 by the name. One ghost per person: it goes quiet whenever their own hand is on the egg, and while they serve a slow lane. Hours are sold on the same terms as Power — while an evening egg is running, and between two eggs when one is coming, never while a grand egg stands — or taken for free: every account may take one ghost hour a day. Hours stay on the account and never expire. Buying a ghost adds nothing to the prize. Any other machine is cheating.
THE PRIZE POOL
Each grand egg carries a prize pool in dollars, made of what sponsors put in and whatever the operator adds. What is inside is chosen by the operator — a sum of money, or a real thing — and it is shown from the first tap: what it is and what it is worth are on the round’s page for the whole round, not kept back for the break. The hidden number is the only secret of the game. The prize goes to the person whose tap broke the egg. To receive it, the winner gives a name and an email when claiming. Every prize claim is checked by a person before anything is sent, and the winner is contacted at that email — which is used for nothing else and shown to nobody but whoever sends the prize (on a community’s egg, its host). Claiming also hands the winner a one-time code, shown once and never stored in the clear; the winner keeps it and is asked for it before the prize goes out. Prizes are sent where the sponsor can ship them and money is paid where it can lawfully be paid; if that excludes you, a prize of the same value is offered in another form. Automated tapping voids a prize. Every grand egg’s prize is worth at least 50 US dollars; the evening egg has none and can have none. One prize per person per month, checked by hand; a prize not claimed within thirty days stays with the operator.
SPONSORS
Brands may sponsor a grand egg’s round; the evening egg takes no sponsor. Several can share one; the biggest package is the primary sponsor. A fixed part of what a sponsor pays goes into that round’s prize pool, and a sponsor learns nothing about the hidden number.
FAIR PLAY
All of this is about the egg with the gift. On the evening egg, where nothing is won, nobody is asked to prove they are human and no slow lane is opened: a machine cadence there takes nothing from anybody, and the lane would switch off a level somebody paid for, on the one egg where paying is the point. The twelve taps a second still hold, on every egg. On a grand egg, tapping faster than a hand can — scripts, macros, many devices — is against the rules. Rates are limited, identities are limited, and a win that looks automated is held for review and may be refused. A player who holds a machine cadence for minutes, or who taps for twenty minutes without a two-second breath, or for two hours without a minute away, is put in the slow lane: one tap every two seconds, Power paused, marked with a 🐌 for everyone to see, for an hour the first time and twice as long each time after. The lane can be lifted by passing Cloudflare's human check, three times a day at most. A win by a player who was ever caught is held for a person to check. Once the egg reaches the bottom of its announced range, when any tap could break it, a tap counts on the egg only from a hand that passed the human check within the hour; so does a tap from a connection where somebody was caught that day. Taps at a machine's cadence still move the counter but earn nothing: no place in a ranking, no feathers, no shell.
COLOURS AND SUPPORTERS
A player may buy a colour for their dot and their name, and a place for their name on the egg, in the footer and on the round’s page. Both are looks and nothing more: they add nothing to the prize and change nothing about the egg.
GUESSES AND SHOUTS
Anyone may guess the hidden number: a whole number in the announced range, one per person, the last one counts. At the break the closest guesses are shown on the round’s page. Nothing is won by guessing. A player may buy a shout: a few words shown on their dot on the egg at every one of their taps, for ten minutes or an hour. It is moderated like a name, an abusive shout is removed without refund, and it changes nothing about the egg.
YOUR NAME
Anyone may put a name on their taps in the live feed, and a winner may put a name on the round for 30 days after the break. Names are moderated; an abusive name is replaced and the round reopened for a new one.
YOUR NEST
What you keep from one egg to the next. Feathers, earned by tapping, guessing, coming back day after day and never sold; a streak of days; achievements, earned by playing and never sold, public on the achievements board with how many people hold each, the rare ones announced to the room, one of them worn next to your name if you like; a shell for every egg you tapped on, gold for the top ten; looks, a dot shape, a tap effect, a trail, a frame, some free with feathers, some on the season pass, some in the shop. A season lasts four weeks and thirty tiers, climbed with feathers; the pass opens a second look on six of those tiers, nothing else. None of it touches the egg, none of it has a money value, none of it can be traded. The nest lives on your device and follows your email once you save one.
TEAMS
Every tap already counts for a country. A team is a name and a blazon a group taps under, with its own line on the board next to the nations, per hour and per egg. On a grand egg both count taps and nothing else; on an evening egg they count weight, like every other board there. A ghost hand does not tap for a flag or a blazon at all, on either. Founding one costs a little; joining is free, by link. The blazon shows next to every member’s name. Teams are for pride: no prize is attached to their board either.
THE EVENING EGG
Some days a small egg opens at a fixed hour and breaks within the half hour: a smaller secret number, drawn in a range shown on the page, no sponsor, and nothing inside. It is the egg described under “Two sorts of egg” above — the one place where Power and a ghost hand weigh, on the counter and personal rankings, and the one place where they are sold. A claim there is published at once, since there is no prize to check before it. The grand egg, with the gift, is announced by a countdown.
BRINGING A FRIEND
On an egg with a gift, the operator may set a referral bonus; when one is set, its amount is shown on the egg’s own page, and when none is shown there is none. It is owed to the person whose link brought the winner, on these conditions: the winner arrived through that link before tapping that egg for the first time; the link was attached before the egg broke; the two are not the same person, on one account or on several, and did not play from the same address. The bonus is paid on top of the prize and takes nothing from it, and it changes nothing a tap does: nobody’s odds move, the inviter’s or the winner’s. Like the prize, every bonus is checked by a person before anything is sent, and it is paid only if the win itself is confirmed. It is paid to the inviter at the email on their account, and an inviter without an account is asked to make one to receive it.
A COMMUNITY’S EGG
A community can have an egg of its own, at /h/its-name, with the same rules, its own counter, chat and console, and its own prize, put in and sent by whoever runs it: they organise that game and answer for it; we provide the software. A host’s egg is a grand egg: every tap counts one, nothing paid touches who breaks it, and the host can neither read nor move the hidden number.
THE ORGANISER, THE LAW
The game is run by Ghota Tech Solutions, reachable at contact@ghotatechsolutions.com; the full details are on the legal notice. These rules are in force since 21 September 2026; the formal version, in French, is the règlement du jeu, and purchases follow the terms of sale. French law applies. A change to the rules never applies to an egg already broken.