Moon-Block Apps Feel More Like the Real Thing. Users Wish the AI Would Stay Quiet

In temples across Taiwan, Fujian, Chaozhou and Hong Kong, people ask the gods yes-or-no questions with a pair of crescent-shaped wooden blocks. You hold a question in mind and drop the blocks on the floor. One flat side up and one round side up is a "holy" answer, a yes. Two flat sides is a laughing answer, usually read as unclear. Two round sides is a no. In 2026 the ritual, called jiaobei or poe, keeps getting more realistic on the App Store. "Jiaobei・3D Moon Blocks," released on July 25, lets you shake the phone and watch two 3D blocks clatter onto a wooden floor, and its store page promises the toss itself will always be free. "Xin Nian," released on Sept. 15, brings in temple etiquette: light incense before an altar to the Earth God, Guanyin, Guan Yu or Mazu, then toss, and a question only counts as granted after three holy answers in a row. "Wen Bei," released on Oct. 1, lets buyers of its one-time Pro upgrade toss on an Apple Watch with a long press or a shake of the wrist.

The moon-block app that has made it onto a grossing chart uses the ritual as a front door to AI fortune-telling. FateTell's name in the Taiwan store leads with the Chinese words for moon blocks. One screenshot shows two hands cradling the blocks with an instruction to flick the phone upward; the rest show an AI fortune companion, BaZi birth charts, couple charts and a paid "Book of Fate." In the App Store charts AstroDir records each day, FateTell ranked No. 14 among top-grossing Lifestyle apps in Hong Kong on Oct. 11, up from No. 20 a day earlier, and No. 31 in Singapore and No. 34 in Taiwan. It has 1,000 ratings in Taiwan, averaging 4.76. Reviews suggest the blocks bring people in. One Taiwanese user wrote in August that they downloaded it for the moon blocks and only later found the birth chart. Another said in March they had seen Instagram posts of people tossing blocks before opening blind boxes, and wanted an app to consult before buying scratch-off tickets.

FateTell is built by a small team on the edge of Hangzhou. The New Yorker reported on Sept. 23 that the company is based in Liangzhu, feeds users' birth charts through large language models, and has hundreds of thousands of users, the most devoted of whom pay yearly. Its founder, Levy, told the magazine the team is exploring hardware: wooden moon blocks with smart chips inside.

The toss gets the praise. The AI that follows it gets the blame. In a one-star review from Hong Kong in February, a FateTell user said they had thrown a holy answer, only for the AI to report that their connection to the gods had dropped, ask them to try again when fate allowed, and finally announce that the gods had nothing more to say. The reviewer's reply: but I got a yes. Several two-star reviews in the US store in September praised the design, then said the yearly membership covers little beyond daily readings and that most features sit behind further paywalls. One was titled simply "Is this AI slop?" Sheng Bei, a rival that pairs 3D tossing with AI lot readings and chat, draws the same split in its China store reviews. When an update added an AI assistant in September 2025, one user left a single star asking what moon blocks had to do with AI. This January another said the tossing worked fine but the AI reading got their birth chart wrong. On Sept. 21, a two-star review said there was nothing wrong with the tossing, while the AI was all empty pep talk and drifted off topic when pressed. These are individual accounts, and both apps also have reviewers praising the depth of the AI answers and the speed of fixes.

Several of this year's new apps leave AI out entirely. Wen Bei's store page says plainly that results are random, unrelated to what you type or whether you paid, and that Pro is a one-time purchase with no subscription. Jiaobei・3D Moon Blocks keeps its question log on the phone and processes motion data only during the toss. Xin Nian needs no account, uploads nothing, and states that it is not an oracle. Their effort goes into feel and rules instead: how the blocks land, the three-yes threshold, how long a stick of incense burns.

If you just want to toss the blocks, the free parts of these apps are enough: a shake and a glance, much like a throw on a temple floor. Whether to pay for an AI to interpret the answer is another matter, and the reviews lean toward no. People download these apps for the toss. The talk that follows strikes many of them as padded, off topic, or a lead-in to a membership pitch. If FateTell does put chips inside wooden blocks, the thing people pick up and throw will be real again.