Bricks

You’re given a hexagonal grid with numbers in some of its cells. Your objective is to shade several cells while following these rules:

1. Each shaded cell must have at least one shaded cell below it (unless it’s on the bottom row).
2. There can’t be 3 or more consecutive shaded cells in a horizontal line.
3. A number indicates the amount of shaded cells around it.
4. Cells with numbers cannot be shaded.

Controls

On a touch screen, a tap does what a click does, and a long press what a right-click does (more ways to right-click).

Click a cell to cycle it from empty to shaded, then clear, then empty again. Right-click it to cycle it the other way, from empty to clear, then shaded.

With the keyboard, the arrow keys move a cursor around the board. Enter does what a click does to the cell under it, and Space what a right-click does. Press 1 to shade it; clicking it round gets there too. Press 0 or 2 to mark it clear; clicking it round gets there too. Press Backspace or Delete to empty it; clicking it round gets there too.

Drag across several cells to make them all what the first one became.

You can also use the numpad (keys 1, 3, 7, 9) to move the cursor diagonally. Hold Ctrl while moving the cursor to shade the cells it leaves and enters, Shift to mark them clear, or both to empty them.

What the cells show

A shaded cell holds a purple square. A cell you have decided is not shaded is clear: it turns yellow, with a faint cross. The numbers sit on lighter cells.

Where the puzzle comes from

This genre was invented by Nikoli under the name Tawamurenga.

Hints

Hint explains the next step rather than simply making it. Each step decides one cell: either it must be shaded, or it must stay clear, which means making it clear (right-click, or Space). The hint reasons from the numbers and your own shaded and clear cells, so it carries on from wherever you are.

• A ring marks the cell the step decides, on the cell’s own border. The sentence says whether it must be shaded or stay clear.
• An outline marks what the step reasons from, as a smaller ring inside the cell: a number, the shaded bricks beside the cell, the cells beneath it or the brick above it.

A shaded brick, in the hint’s words, is a cell holding a purple square. Where a sentence says “this cell”, it means the ringed one; the thinner rings in another color are the “outlined” cells it names.

Each step is one of the rules at work on a single cell: shading it would make three in a row, leave it with nothing shaded beneath it to rest on, or give a number too many shaded neighbors; or clearing it would leave a shaded brick above with nothing to rest on, or leave a number unable to reach its count.

If a brick or a cross is wrong, the hint asks you to fix the highlighted mistakes first, and the wrong one turns red, as it does for Check & save, whether or not it breaks a rule yet. A broken rule is marked as well: a bar over three in a row, a diamond under a brick with nothing to rest on, a number in red. On an Unreasonable board it may stop and say that nothing further follows by deduction.

Not in this game

• Turning the board to fit the screen. A shaded brick rests on the row below it, and no three may lie in a horizontal line, so a board turned on its side would be a different puzzle.

Bricks parameters

These parameters are available from the ‘Custom type…’ option on the ‘Type’ menu.

Width, Height

Size of the grid in squares. A 2x2 has only Easy puzzles. Each must be at least 2.

Difficulty

Determine the difficulty of the generated puzzle; see what the names mean. An Easy puzzle can always be finished a square at a time: pick a square, try a color, and one of the three rules breaks immediately. An Unreasonable one has a single solution that those steps stop short of, so somewhere you have to try a color and see what follows. The Hint button stops where the forced squares do.

More help

• Features every puzzle shares: hints, checking your work, checkpoints, playing by touch
• Help home