Tents and Trees

How to play Tents and Trees

Tents and Trees is a classic logic placement puzzle played on a square grid. Some cells already contain a fixed tree, and your job is to pitch exactly one tent next to each tree. It sounds simple, but the three rules interact in surprising ways: tents can never touch each other, and every row and column has to hit an exact tent count shown beside the grid. There is no guessing involved — every puzzle in this game is checked by a solver before you ever see it, guaranteeing it has one, and only one, correct answer, so patient logical deduction will always get you to the finish.

The goal

Place exactly one tent next to every tree so that three things are all true at once: each tent sits orthogonally adjacent to its own tree (never diagonally); no two tents touch anywhere on the board, not even at a corner; and the number of tents in every row and every column exactly matches the clue number printed beside it. When every tree has a tent and every clue is satisfied, you win.

The rules

• Trees are fixed. They are already printed on the board when the puzzle starts and never move — you place tents and grass marks on the remaining cells only.
• One tent per tree. Every tree gets exactly one tent, and that tent must be directly above, below, to the left of, or to the right of its tree — never diagonally.
• Tents never touch. No two tents may be adjacent in any of the eight directions around a cell — not up, down, left, right, or any of the four diagonals. If you place a tent, every cell surrounding it must stay tent-free.
• Row and column clues. A number next to each row and each column tells you exactly how many tents must end up in that row or column — no more, no fewer.
• Everything else is grass. Cells that are neither a tree nor a tent are grass. You can leave grass cells blank, or place an explicit grass mark on them to help keep track of what you have ruled out.

Controls

• Tap or click any non-tree cell to cycle it through three states, in order: empty, tent, grass mark, then back to empty again.
• Tree cells are fixed and cannot be tapped — the game only lets you interact with the cells that could hold a tent.
• Grass marks are a memory aid only. Marking a cell as grass never affects your score or your mistake count, even if you later change your mind — use them freely while you reason through a tricky row or column.
• Full keyboard support: tab to any cell and press Enter or Space to cycle it, exactly as if you had tapped it.

Difficulty levels

• Easy plays on a 6×6 board with 6 trees. A gentle introduction where most moves are forced by a single row or column clue.
• Medium plays on an 8×8 board with 11 trees. More clues to juggle at once, and more situations where two trees compete for the same candidate cell.
• Hard plays on a 10×10 board with 15 trees — the full challenge. Every clue matters, and you will often need to combine several deductions before the next tent becomes obvious.

Daily Puzzle

Tap the Daily Puzzle button to play today's puzzle for whichever size you have selected. Every player around the world gets exactly the same layout on the same UTC calendar day, so you can compare solve times and mistake counts with friends. A brand-new Daily Puzzle appears automatically at the start of each UTC day — come back tomorrow for a fresh one, or tap New Puzzle any time for unlimited, freely-generated practice puzzles.

Solving tips

• If a tree has only one empty orthogonal neighbour left, that neighbour must be its tent — place it immediately, no reasoning required.
• If a row's or column's clue is already satisfied by the tents you have placed, mark every other empty cell in that row or column as grass — none of them can possibly be a tent.
• A clue of 0 for a row or column means it holds no tents at all. Mark every cell in that row or column as grass straight away.
• The no-touch rule works diagonally too. As soon as you place a tent, all eight cells surrounding it are guaranteed to be grass — mark them to shrink the puzzle immediately.
• When two different trees both border the very same empty cell as their only remaining candidate, look closely at each tree's other neighbours before committing — only one tree can claim that cell, and the other must have a different escape route.

Scoring and the leaderboard

Each solved puzzle earns a score of max(1, min(99999, 10000 − seconds × 5 − mistakes × 200)). You start from 10000 points; every second that passes takes off five points, and every wrong tent you place costs 200 points. Marking or clearing grass never costs anything, however many times you change your mind. So the faster and cleaner your solve, the higher your score, always kept between 1 and 99,999. Scores are recorded for each difficulty separately — sign in to save your best result to the leaderboard.

Frequently asked questions