Tile Garden.

How to play Tile Garden

1. Press Play, then Enter the garden to start the pairs journey, or choose Basket mode, Daily or All gardens.
2. In pairs, tap a bright tile and then another bright tile with the same face. Shaded tiles are waiting: something rests on them or both sides are blocked. Tap a shaded tile and the game shows which tiles hold it.
3. Season tiles with a gold ring match any other season tile. Every other face matches only itself.
4. In the basket, tap any uncovered tile. It drops into the basket beside matching tiles, and three alike bloom away. Plan so the basket never holds seven tiles without a set.
5. Use Undo, Hint and Shuffle in pairs, or Undo, Lift and Gather in the basket, whenever you like. They are free but cost the star for playing without help.
6. Clear the board to finish. The results show your stars, time and best chain, and the next garden opens.

Make your move

About Tile Garden

Tile Garden is an original tile-matching puzzle with two ways to play. Pairs is Mahjong solitaire, the single-player layered puzzle rather than the four-player table game: two identical tiles leave the board together, but only when both are free, meaning nothing rests on them and at least one horizontal side is open. Basket is a triple match: you tap any uncovered tile to drop it into a seven-slot basket, three identical tiles bloom away, and seven waiting tiles with no set among them fill the basket.

The pairs journey has 144 gardens in twelve chapters, from a twelve-tile seedling to grand 144-tile terraces with five layers. Each chapter adds one idea: layers, season tiles that match any other season, raised tiles resting on half steps, full sets of four identical faces, rings and walls, tall stacks and partners scattered far apart. The basket journey adds 96 levels in eight chapters, growing from twelve tiles and three faces to 150 tiles and more than twenty faces, with deeper stacks and longer plans.

Every deal is certified. The generator removes legal pairs, or picks open tiles, from the full board and only then paints the faces, so each level ships with a complete solution. Levels were then chosen by measurement: for every journey level, candidate deals were played many times by a simple test player, and the deal closest to that level’s target difficulty was kept. That is why the curve rises steadily instead of lurching between easy and impossible, and why the label beside each title, from Gentle to Devious, reflects a measurement rather than a guess.

Choices still matter. In pairs, clearing the wrong two of four identical tiles can bury the other two. A hint searches your exact position and highlights a pair that keeps a full route open; if the position can no longer be finished, it says so plainly. The shuffle re-deals only the faces still on the board, and it does so with the same certified construction, so a shuffled garden can always be cleared. Undo is unlimited. In the basket, each level includes three undos, one lift that moves three tiles to a side ledge, and one gather that completes a set from anywhere on the board.

Stars reward skill, not spending. A pairs garden awards one star for clearing it, one for clearing it without hints or shuffles, and one for clearing it without undo. A basket level awards one for clearing it, one for using no assists, and one for a tidy basket: never keeping more tiles waiting than the level’s target, a number the solution itself proves is possible. Stars unlock five tile finishes. The next level opens when you clear the one before it, and the whole journey is free.

The daily garden and daily basket change at midnight on your device’s calendar and are the same deal for every player on that date. Free play reopens any layout you have reached with a fresh certified deal at Gentle, Classic or Devious strength and keeps your best time for each layout. The forty tile faces, from lotus and koi to lanterns and wind bells, are original vector drawings in two-tone ink, and the four season tiles carry a gold ring so they read at a glance.

Tile Garden plays with a mouse, a keyboard or touch, in portrait or landscape. Large gardens on small phones can be zoomed with a button or a pinch and dragged around. Sound effects and a quiet, ever-changing garden music track are synthesized in the browser, and each can be switched off. Progress, stars, streaks and unfinished gardens are saved in this browser without an account. If you cleared gardens in the first release of Tile Garden, they now count toward the new journey, and your best times appear in free play.

A little help for your next high score

• Clear tall stacks and long rows early. A tile buried under three others can hold a whole garden back.
• When three of four identical tiles are free, find the fourth before you choose. Keep the pair that frees the most tiles.
• A tile boxed in on both sides is not free, even when its face is showing. Open one end of the row.
• In the basket, a waiting pair needs one more tile and a single needs two. When space runs short, finish pairs before starting new faces.
• Partly covered basket tiles still show their faces. Take a tile when you can see where its partners will come from.
• The daily deals suit a short break, and a clear of either one keeps your streak going.

Good questions