The Doppit Almanac · No. 25

Tallyit, a daily Fill-a-Pix

Fill squares to match every count

What it is

Tallyit is Doppit’s daily Fill-a-Pix, also called Mosaic. Some squares carry a number, and each number counts the filled squares in its own little block: the square it sits on and the up to eight that touch it. Paint the whole grid filled or empty so every number counts true, and a small picture surfaces.

It plays like Minesweeper turned inside out. Rather than stepping around the mines, you fill them in. Each board has one solution, and logic alone gets you there. A number reddens when its block holds too many fills, and dims once it is satisfied, so you always know where you stand.

How it plays

The count is the whole game.

• A number is the filled squares in its three by three block, itself included.
• At an edge that block is six squares, and in a corner four. A number is never larger than the squares it can reach.
• A numbered square is counted too, and can be filled or empty. A four in a corner fills all four, itself among them.
• X marks are your own note for empty, and only the fills decide the win.

The difficulties

Three boards go to press each day, and a fourth is run off for practice. Easy is a five by five warm up that saturation and plain counting settle in thirty seconds to a minute. Medium is a ten by ten with sparser numbers, where you subtract one block from its neighbour to break a tie, one to three minutes of steady work. Hard is a fifteen by fifteen engraving that leans on that overlap again and again, three to six minutes of it. Expert is the same fifteen by fifteen with the same scattering of numbers, plus a step the daily boards are never allowed: fill one square, watch a number break a few moves on, and take the other answer. Nine of those at least, on every expert board. If a square stalls, the hint picks the next one and says why. A fresh set prints every day, and the price stays at nothing.

Nearby in the almanac: Nonit, Lightit, and Islandit