Putting the picture back in Slide Puzzle, Games by Zaweba
Slide Puzzle in Games by Zaweba: slide numbered tiles of a painted scene back into order, peek at the picture with P and solve it in fewer moves.
A painted landscape has been cut into numbered tiles, jumbled up, and one tile taken away to leave a gap. Slide Puzzle asks you to put it back together. It is one of the oldest puzzles there is, and the version on the Puzzles shelf of Games by Zaweba adds a picture worth looking at once you have finished.
The goal
Slide tiles into the gap until every number is back in order, reading left to right and top to bottom, with the gap in the bottom right corner. When the last tile slides home, the picture is whole again. Fewer moves is better, so a tidy solve beats a lucky scramble.
Moving tiles
Click any tile that is in line with the gap, in the same row or column, and it slides across. Or use the arrow keys to slide a tile into the gap from the side you choose. The keyboard is the more precise way to play once you have the feel of it, since each press moves exactly one tile.
Two other keys help. Press N to turn the numbers on or off. With numbers on, the order is easy to read. With them off, you are matching the picture itself, which is harder and rather satisfying. Hold P to peek at the finished picture, then let go to carry on.
A method that always works
People who solve sliding puzzles reliably tend to work in layers rather than trying to fix everything at once.
Start with the top row. Bring the first tile into its corner, then the next beside it, and so on. The last tile of a row is the awkward one, because there is no space to slide it in from the side without disturbing its neighbours. The usual trick is to place the last two tiles of the row together: park them one above the other just below their spots, then rotate them both into place in one move round the gap.
Once the top row is done, leave it alone and solve the next row the same way. When only the bottom two rows are left, switch to solving them column by column from the left, two tiles at a time, using the same pairing trick. The final few tiles go round in a small loop until they click into order.
Fewer moves
When you can solve the puzzle reliably, start paying attention to your move count. Plan the route of each tile before you move it, and avoid sliding the gap back and forth. Moving the gap the long way round a tile to get it into position is often fewer moves overall than nudging it repeatedly.
The peek helps here too. Holding P before you start lets you fix the scene in your mind, which is especially useful with numbers off.
Other games like Slide Puzzle
Slide Puzzle sits on the Puzzles shelf of Games by Zaweba with Switch Off and Marble Solitaire, the games where you work a muddle back into a set position. It is gentle and has no time pressure, so it suits a quiet few minutes. Games by Zaweba keeps your best result for each mode, and everything is drawn in code inside the app, so it works with no connection at all. Press Esc to pause and F1 for the rules.
