Guide · 3 min read

Pond

Pond is a small daily building puzzle. You get a few reeds and one frog, and the job is to close off a pond the frog cannot hop out of while keeping as much good water inside as you can.

Play Pond →

1Place reeds to close off a pond so the frog cannot hop out to the edge.
2Water is worth 1 point, a lily pad 3 and the muddy bank 0. You need at least one lily.
3The best wall is not always at the gaps. Sometimes a reed inside the pond is worth more.

The basics

The board is a grid of water, lily pads, muddy bank and rocks. The frog sits on one water tile. Tap a water or bank tile to plant a reed there, and tap it again to pull it back out. You cannot plant on rocks, lily pads or the frog itself.

The frog hops up, down, left and right through anything that is not a rock or a reed. If it can find any route to the edge of the map, it wanders off and your pond does not count. The board shows you the escape route while one exists.

When the frog is shut in and there is at least one lily pad inside, you can submit. You get one submission a day.

Try it

A tiny version of Pond to play with. It is not today's puzzle, so nothing here spoils anything.

How a pond is scored

Everything the frog can reach counts toward your pond.

Open water is worth 1 point.
A lily pad is worth 3 points, and the frog will not settle without at least one.
Muddy bank is worth nothing. It is still useful, because it is a cheap place to put a wall.

The keeper's score

Every pond has a best score that a solver found ahead of time. Your result is shown as a share of that number, and after you submit you can see the keeper's reed layout laid over the board.

It is possible to match the keeper, and the result screen will tell you if you somehow beat it.

Worked example

A worked pond

Say you have three reeds. The top half of the pond has two gaps to the edge, and the bottom half connects to it through a narrow channel and has two gaps of its own, plus a juicy lily pad.

Closing all four gaps would need four reeds, so the obvious play is two reeds on the top gaps and one in the channel. That works, but it throws away the whole bottom half. Look at the bottom again. If the lily sits just past the channel, one reed placed beyond the lily, inside the bottom half, keeps the lily and the channel in your pond and only cuts off the empty part. Same three reeds, a noticeably bigger score.

Tips worth remembering

1Look for the narrowest points first. A one tile gap between two rocks is the cheapest wall in the game.
2Count before you commit. A smaller pond with two lilies can beat a bigger one with only one.
3Reeds do not have to sit on the edge of the pond. Cutting off an empty corner is often better than sealing it.
4Use every reed you are given. A spare reed usually means a bit of water you could have kept.