Twiddle
Rotate square sections of the grid to arrange the squares into
numerical order starting from the top left. The game mode says what
the squares carry:
- Standard: Every square carries a number of its own.
- Rows only: The squares of a row all carry the row’s number, so it doesn’t matter which of them goes where in it.
A setting adds a rule, which a board’s name says:
- Orientable: each square turns with its block, and must also end up the right way round.
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 block to rotate it anticlockwise. Right-click it to rotate it clockwise.
With the keyboard, the arrow keys move a cursor around the board. Enter does what a click does to the block under it, and Space what a right-click does.
A block is the square section that turns, 2×2 in the basic game. A dot marks
the center of every block it can turn about: for a 2×2 block, the corner point
between its four squares; for a 3×3 block, its middle square. A click
anywhere on a square turns the block, among those holding that square, whose
center is nearest the click. With a mouse, that block is outlined before you
click; the keyboard’s cursor outlines its block the same way.
The keys A, B, C and D turn the block in the top-left,
top-right, bottom-left and bottom-right corner anticlockwise, and
the capital letter (with Shift) turns it clockwise. On the numeric keypad, 7,
9, 1 and 3 turn the corner blocks, and 8, 2, 4, 6 and 5 turn the block
exactly halfway along an edge, or in the very center, where the grid
has one.
Hints
Hint shows the next turn rather than simply making it. Nothing in
Twiddle is forced by logic, so the hint plans a way to finish from wherever
you are and says what each turn is for.
- A ring marks what the step decides: the block to turn, ringed at its pivot, with an arrow the way it turns.
- An outline marks the tile the step is working on.
- Stripes mark finished tiles that a turn of a run lifts out of place, or that come back on it.
The plan puts the tiles in place in reading order, keeping every finished
tile where it is, and each step opens by naming the tile it is working on,
“Working on tile 3:”. A tile is in place on its own square and, when
orientation matters, the right way up.
While a block clear of the finished tiles can reach the tile, the hint turns
that block to carry it toward its place, or to put it in place. At the end
of a row, and in the last rows, every block covers a finished tile, so the
tile goes in by a run of turns that moves finished tiles out and brings them
all back. The hint gives a run one turn at a time and says which part of a
technique each turn is, striping the finished tiles a turn lifts out or
brings back.
The techniques
- A tuck: turn a block that holds finished tiles, which lifts them out of
the way; turn another block, which moves the tile into the space; turn the
first block back. The finished tiles return, and the tile comes in with
them. This is how the end of a row is filled.
- A cycle: turn a block, turn a second block that overlaps it, turn the
first block back, turn the second block back. A tile that only one of the
two turns moved is put back by that block’s turn back, so only tiles
carried from one block into the other end up somewhere new. Where the two
blocks share one square, exactly three tiles go round.
- Lining up: before a cycle or a tuck, turn a block to bring the tiles
it should work on into its blocks; after it, turn that block back. Every
tile the lining up moved returns, except those the cycle moved on.
- Small cycles: with 4×4 blocks no two blocks share only one square, so
the cycle is built from two smaller cycles in place of two turns: the first
small cycle, the second, the first undone, the second undone.
- A swap: with 2×2 blocks, or any odd size, one turn and then a cycle
inside the same block leaves two tiles exchanged, which no cycle on its own
can do.
- A twist (when orientation matters): move the same tiles the same way
twice by two routes, the second played backwards. The tiles end where they
started, turned round.
A 3×3 (or any odd) block turns about a center square, so a tile always stays
on squares of its own checkerboard color.
Follow it or go your own way: when you make a different turn, the next hint
plans again from there. If you stop partway through a run, the next hint
reads the turns left as a technique of their own and puts the moved tiles
back as it goes on.
Not in this game
- Checking for mistakes. Every arrangement of the tiles is a step on the way to the answer, so no move can be wrong, only longer.
Twiddle parameters
These parameters are available from the ‘Custom type…’ option on the ‘Type’ menu.
- Width, Height
- Size of the grid in squares. Neither may be smaller than the rotating block.
- Rotating block size
- How many squares wide the block you turn is. A block of even size turns about the corner point at its center, and an odd one about its center square; that is where you click. It must be at least 2.
- Game mode
- Which puzzle to play: Standard or Rows only. The rules of each are at the top of this page.
- Orientation matters
- When on, each square turns with its block, and must also end up the right way round.
- Number of shuffling moves
- How many random turns shuffle the grid. At 0 the game chooses a long shuffle; any other number shuffles exactly that many turns, and the status bar shows that number as your target beside the count of your moves. It must be at least 0.
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