Islands rules
How to play Islands
Each number tells you how many cells are in its land island. Shade the other cells as sea. Islands never share an edge, and the sea stays connected without 2x2 blocks.
Worked example
Use Next to follow each deduction from the starting clues to the finished board.
Numbered cells are land. Each number is the exact size of its island. Sea cells must connect, and sea never forms a 2-by-2 block.
1 / 4
- Numbered cells are land. Each number is the exact size of its island. Sea cells must connect, and sea never forms a 2-by-2 block.
- A 1-clue is a finished island by itself. Shade every side neighbor as sea.
- The open gap in the top row and the open gap on the left are the only ways to join those sea pieces, so shade both. The center gap is the only sea link that leaves all four bottom cells for the 4-clue, so shade it too.
- All sea now connects. The only cells left for the 4-clue are the four along the bottom, so mark the three cells beside the 4 as land.
Rules
- A numbered cell is always land. Each island has exactly one number.
- Each numbered island has exactly that many land cells connected by sides.
- Islands never share an edge.
- Sea cells connect by sides and never form a 2x2 block.
Common mistake
Islands may meet at a corner. They cannot share an edge, and two numbered cells can never belong to the same island.
Controls
Tap a cell to shade sea. Tap it again to mark land. Numbered cells stay land and are not tappable.