proxx.app

In PROXX, the start screen settings define the board you are about to scan: Width and Height set the grid size, Black holes sets how many hazards are hidden in that grid, and Difficulty adjusts the overall challenge of the round. You choose these before starting, so they determine both how much space you must clear and how densely dangerous it is.

The four settings at a glance

The start screen presents these as the inputs you set before launching a round, alongside the control to begin.

Width and height: the size of the space you scan

Width and height together define the grid your crew navigates. Width is the horizontal extent (columns), height is the vertical extent (rows). A larger width or height gives you more cells to mark and more room to move, while a smaller board compresses the same decisions into less space. Because the two are set separately, you can make a wide, short board or a narrow, tall one — the shape of the space changes, not just its total size.

Black holes: the hazard count

The Black holes setting controls how many black holes are placed on the board. Black holes are the hazards your proximity scanner is designed to help you locate and avoid — the game's description frames your job as helping your crew navigate space by marking out the black holes with the scanner. Raising this number puts more hazards into the same grid; lowering it leaves more safe space.

Difficulty: the overall challenge

Difficulty affects the overall challenge of the round rather than one specific dimension. Treat it as the setting that tunes how demanding the round feels, while width, height, and black holes describe the concrete board you are working with. If you want a precise, self-designed challenge, set the board dimensions and hazard count directly; if you want a quicker adjustment to the general challenge, use difficulty.

How the settings interact

The settings are not independent in effect. The same number of black holes feels very different on a small grid than on a large one:

• Small width/height + many black holes → a cramped, hazard-dense board where safe cells are scarce.
• Large width/height + few black holes → an open board where hazards are sparse and scanning is more forgiving.
• Changing difficulty shifts the overall challenge on top of whatever board shape and hazard count you have chosen.

So when you adjust one setting, consider the others: adding black holes without enlarging the grid raises the danger density, and enlarging the grid without adding black holes lowers it.

A practical way to choose your settings

1. Decide the board size first. Pick a width and height that match how long and how large a round you want.
2. Set the black holes relative to that size. More cells generally support more hazards; keep the ratio in mind rather than the raw count alone.
3. Use difficulty for the final adjustment. If the round still feels too easy or too hard, change difficulty rather than reshaping the board.
4. Start the round and observe. The scanner feedback during play is how you judge whether your combination was right; adjust and start again if needed.

Common points of confusion

• Width and height are separate. They are not a single "size" value — a board can be wide and short or narrow and tall.
• Black holes is a count, not a difficulty label. It tells you how many hazards are placed; difficulty is the separate overall-challenge setting.
• These are start settings. They are chosen before the round begins, so plan the board you want rather than expecting to change it mid-round.

Once you know that width and height shape the space, black holes set the hazard count, and difficulty tunes the overall challenge, you can build the exact kind of round you want before you start scanning.

PROXX is a browser-based logic puzzle game where you help a crew navigate space by using a proximity scanner to locate hidden black holes. To play, open proxx.app, set your difficulty, board width and height, and the number of black holes, then start the round. Your goal is to mark every black hole without accidentally opening one, using the scanner's proximity numbers to deduce where they are.

Before You Start

No account or installation is mentioned on the site — the game loads directly in the browser. The start screen presents four settings you choose before each round:

Adjust these to make the board larger or smaller and to increase or decrease the number of black holes you need to find. When you're happy with the setup, start the round.

How a Round Works

The board is a grid of unopened cells. Somewhere in that grid are the black holes you configured. Your job is to mark each one so the crew can navigate around it.

Reading the Proximity Scanner

When you open a cell that is not a black hole, the scanner reports how close the nearest black holes are. Use these numbers the same way you would in a proximity-based deduction puzzle:

• A number tells you how many black holes are adjacent to that cell.
• A blank or zero result means no black holes touch that cell, so the surrounding cells are safe to open.
• Cells near a black hole will show higher numbers, narrowing down where the black holes must sit.

Marking Black Holes

Once the numbers let you deduce a black hole's location, mark that cell instead of opening it. Marking is how you "help your crew navigate space" — the marked cells represent the hazards the crew must avoid.

The Failure Condition

Opening a cell that contains a black hole ends the round. This is why you mark suspected black holes rather than opening them: deduction first, action second.

A Practical Walkthrough

1. Choose a small board first. Set a modest width and height with a low black-hole count so you can learn how the numbers behave.
2. Open a cell near a corner or edge. Edge cells have fewer neighbors, so their numbers are easier to interpret.
3. Follow the zeros. If a cell reports no nearby black holes, open its neighbors freely — they're safe.
4. Count against the total. You know exactly how many black holes you set, so track how many you've marked. When your marked count matches the configured number, you've found them all.
5. Mark, don't open, when in doubt. A wrong mark is recoverable; an opened black hole ends the round.

Common Sticking Points

• Numbers feel ambiguous at the start. This is normal — early moves give you the least information. Open safe cells first and let the numbers accumulate.
• You lose track of how many black holes remain. Check your marked count against the number you configured at the start.
• The board feels too hard. Reduce width, height, or the black-hole count, or lower the difficulty, and start a new round.

When to Use Each Setting

• Learning the game: small width and height, few black holes.
• A quick session: moderate board with a low black-hole count.
• A real challenge: larger boards and more black holes, which increase the deduction work and the cost of a wrong guess.

Start at proxx.app, set the four options, and begin with a small board until the scanner numbers feel intuitive.

PROXX is a browser-based puzzle game built around proximity. You help a crew navigate space by using a proximity scanner to mark black holes on a grid. It plays like a logic deduction game: each move gives you distance feedback, and you use that feedback to decide where the black holes must be. It suits players who like short, self-contained reasoning puzzles and want to start immediately without installing anything.

How the core loop works

The game presents a grid containing hidden black holes. Your tool is the proximity scanner. When you scan a cell, the game tells you how close that cell is to black holes rather than showing their exact positions. You combine those proximity readings across cells to deduce where the black holes sit, mark them, and thereby let the crew navigate the space safely.

The key mechanism is indirect information. A single scan rarely identifies a black hole outright; the value is in comparing readings from neighboring cells. For example, if two adjacent cells both report a very close proximity, the black hole is likely in the shared area between them, and a third scan on the far side can rule out alternatives. This is the same deduction pattern used in proximity-based puzzle games, applied to a space-navigation theme.

What you can adjust before starting

The page exposes a small set of setup controls, which define the shape of each round:

Because width, height, and black hole count are separate from difficulty, you can shape rounds to your preference: a wide, shallow grid with few black holes plays very differently from a small, dense one. The exact effect of each difficulty level is not described in the available page material, so treat difficulty as the setting to experiment with first.

Who it is for and how to approach it

PROXX fits players who enjoy deduction under uncertainty and want sessions that start and end in the browser. A practical approach:

1. Choose a modest grid and black hole count for your first round so you can learn how scanner readings behave.
2. Scan cells spread across the grid first to establish a baseline, then scan near cells that reported high proximity to narrow down locations.
3. Mark a black hole only when the surrounding readings leave no other consistent position.
4. Increase difficulty, grid size, or black hole count once the deduction pattern feels familiar.

What to keep in mind

The available page material describes the premise and the setup controls but does not detail scoring, progression, or account features. Pricing and login requirements are not stated, so do not assume the game is free or usable without signing in; check the site itself before relying on either. The most reliable way to understand the experience is to set a small grid and play one round, since the proximity feedback is easier to grasp in practice than from description.

The proximity scanner in PROXX tells you how close your crew is to black holes without revealing where they are. Each time you open a tile, the scanner reports a number for that tile: the count of black holes in the eight surrounding cells. A blank or zero means no black holes touch that tile, so its neighbors are safe to open. Higher numbers mean more black holes are adjacent, so you should flag the surrounding tiles instead of opening them. This is the core mechanic described on proxx.app: "Help your crew navigate space by marking out the black holes using proxx, your proximity scanner."

What the scanner actually measures

The scanner is a local count, not a direction finder. It looks only at the eight cells around the tile you just opened (horizontal, vertical, and diagonal). It does not tell you which neighbor holds a black hole, only how many of them do.

The setup screen on proxx.app exposes Difficulty, Width, Height, and Black holes, plus a Start control. The black hole count you choose sets how dense the field is, which directly changes how often high scanner numbers appear.

How to turn scan numbers into black hole locations

The scanner becomes useful when you combine several readings. A single number is ambiguous; overlapping numbers usually are not.

1. Open a safe starting area. Begin where you have room to read several tiles at once.
2. Record each number. Treat every revealed tile as a constraint on its eight neighbors.
3. Find forced placements. If a tile shows 1 and seven of its neighbors are already open or flagged safe, the remaining neighbor must be the black hole. Flag it.
4. Use the complement rule. If a tile shows 2 and two adjacent black holes are already flagged, every other neighbor is safe to open.
5. Cross-check shared neighbors. Two tiles that both touch the same unknown cell can confirm or eliminate it. If one shows 1 and the other shows 0, the shared cell is safe.

A concrete example

Suppose you open a tile and the scanner shows 1. You then open the tile directly above it, which also shows 1. The two tiles share three neighbors. If two of those shared cells are already open and safe, the single black hole must sit in the one remaining shared cell, so you flag it and open the rest.

Common sticking points

• Treating a number as a direction. A 1 does not point at the black hole; it only says one exists among eight cells.
• Flagging too early. Flagging a guess can block a tile you later need to open. Flag only when the count forces it.
• Ignoring diagonal neighbors. The scanner counts all eight surrounding cells, so diagonal black holes still raise the number.
• Forgetting the density setting. A higher Black holes value on the start screen means more high numbers and fewer safe openings, so adjust your caution to the difficulty you picked.

Once every non-black-hole tile is open and all black holes are marked, the round is complete. The scanner is the only information source you get, so reading it carefully, one constraint at a time, is the whole skill of the game.