Turn puzzles: put the sea the right way up

How the turn puzzle works

The picture is split into square tiles that stay where they are. Most of them are rotated by 90, 180 or 270 degrees. One tap turns a tile a quarter clockwise, so any tile needs at most three taps. If you overshoot, right-click it with a mouse or press Shift+Enter on the keyboard to turn it back the other way.

When a tile is upright the board shows it with a calm outline. The picture is complete once all tiles stand upright, and the move counter tells you how many taps it took.

Reading direction from a picture

The upright position is usually obvious when a tile contains a horizon, an animal's body or a straight edge such as a mast or a lighthouse wall. Plain tiles are harder: a square of blue water looks almost the same at any angle. Look for gradients. Underwater, light comes from above, so the water gets brighter towards the surface. In the sky the blue deepens upwards, and sand ripples run in a steady direction across the frame.

Another trick: compare a tile with its neighbours. Lines and colour bands should continue smoothly across the joins; if they break off at a corner, the tile is still turned.

Keyboard play

Tab onto the board, steer the highlight with the arrows, and Enter or Space turns the highlighted tile. Shift+Enter turns it back. Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on a Mac) undoes the last turn, and H asks for a hint.

Sizes

3 × 2 and 4 × 3 are short puzzles that suit a coffee break. 5 × 3 and 6 × 4 take longer because more tiles fall into plain parts of the picture. 7 × 5 and 8 × 5 have 35 and 40 tiles; the time is spent less on tapping than on deciding which way is up.

Questions