Three gestures are all you need. One keeps your notes, one tidies up in a sweep, and one is the moment of truth.
The three gestures
Tap to mark
A single tap puts an X on a patch. Tap it again to take the X away.
Drag to mark several
Slide your finger across the board and every patch you pass gets an X. If you start the drag on a patch that already has an X, the drag erases instead.
Double-tap to search
Two quick taps on the same patch search it. If there’s a lantern there, it lights up. If not, you lose a light.
What an X means
An X is only a note to yourself. It says “no lantern here, as far as I can tell”, and it costs nothing. The game doesn’t check your marks, so a wrong X won’t lose you a light, but it can send your thinking down the wrong path. If a garden stops adding up, a mistaken X is often why.
You can search a patch even if it has an X on it. If there’s a lantern underneath, the lantern wins and the X disappears.
What a wrong search does
A wrong search can’t be taken back. The red X stays for the rest of the attempt and you can’t tap it away, though it does at least tell you where a lantern isn’t. Lose all three lights and the garden is lost, and you can try again.
A good habit
Each time you light a lantern, stop and clear its row, column, coloured area and the ring of patches around it. A long drag along the row and another down the column do most of the work, and then the next step is usually easy to see.
Then try the patterns in solving tips.
