Getting down to one in Marble Solitaire, Games by Zaweba

An old wooden board, a set of glass marbles and one empty hole: Marble Solitaire is one of the most familiar puzzles in any house, and Games by Zaweba draws it lovingly on screen. You jump marbles over each other, removing them one by one, and try to finish with a single marble on the board.

The jump

There is only one move. Jump a marble over a neighbour into an empty hole straight beyond it. The marble you jumped over is taken off the board. Keep going until there are no jumps left.

To move, drag a marble to its new hole, or click a marble and then click one of the glowing holes. The glow shows you which jumps are possible from that marble.

What counts as winning

One marble left at the end is a win. Finishing with that last marble in the centre of the board, or in the starting hole on the triangle board, is a perfect game. Two or three left is a respectable result while you are learning. Anything more usually means a corner of the board got cut off.

Thinking ahead

The commonest way to lose is to strand marbles where nothing can reach them. A marble on its own in an arm of the board, with no neighbours, can never be jumped or jump anything. So the game is really about keeping your marbles together and clearing the outer areas while there are still marbles nearby to do the work.

Try to clear an arm of the board in a group of moves rather than chipping at it now and then. Leave the centre for later, since it is the meeting point of every direction and gives you the most options near the end.

It also helps to think in pairs. Many neat sequences remove two or three marbles from an area and leave the jumping marble back where it started. Learning a couple of these by experiment makes clearing a whole section much easier.

Undo and hints

Marble Solitaire in Games by Zaweba is forgiving. Press Z to undo a move, as many times as you like, so you can step back from a dead end and try another line. Press H for a hint when you cannot see a way forward. Using these freely is the best way to learn the board's patterns, after which you will need them less.

Where it fits in the app

Marble Solitaire sits on the Puzzles shelf, near Switch Off and Slide Puzzle, the other games where one set position has to be reached with a sequence of moves. It is calm and has no clock, so you can think as long as you like. Games by Zaweba keeps your plays and wins, which makes a perfect centre finish all the more satisfying when it finally turns up. Press Esc to pause, and F1 any time you want the rules explained.

If you enjoy hopping marbles over each other, Star Marbles on the Board games shelf uses a similar hop against a computer opponent, with long chains across a six-pointed star.