Bloom
Past dailiesEvery tap flips a flower and its four neighbours between bud and bloom. Make the whole bed bloom, ideally in par.
How to play Bloom
How to play
Tap a flower. It flips, and so do the flowers directly above, below, left and right of it: buds open and open flowers close. Keep tapping until every flower in the bed is in bloom.
Par
Par is the fewest taps that can finish the bed, worked out exactly for every puzzle. Tapping the same flower twice undoes it, so a perfect solve never taps a flower twice.
Tips
The order of your taps doesn't matter, only which flowers you tap. A handy method: work down the bed row by row, and in each row tap the flower below every bud that is still closed in the row above. Then deal with the last row.
Sizes and daily
Pick a bed from 3 × 3 to 7 × 7. Every puzzle is made by tapping flowers on a bed in full bloom, so it can always be solved. The daily 5 × 5 bed is the same for everyone.
Questions
Is every Bloom puzzle solvable?
Yes. Each bed is made by tapping random flowers on a bed in full bloom, so tapping the same flowers again brings it back. Often there is an even shorter way, and par always shows the shortest.
How is par worked out?
Each flower is either tapped or not, and two taps cancel out, so solving a bed is a system of on/off equations. Puzzle Desk solves it exactly with linear algebra over the numbers 0 and 1, and checks every alternative solution to find the fewest taps.
Is this the lights-out puzzle?
It is the same family of switch puzzles, where pressing one switch toggles its neighbours too. Here the switches are flowers in a garden bed, with buds and blooms instead of lights.
What does the hint do?
It finds a shortest way to finish from where you are now and highlights one flower from it, telling you how many taps are left at best. Following hints always finishes the bed in the fewest taps.
Does the order of taps matter?
No. Each flower ends up flipped once for every tap on it or next to it, whatever the order. That is why the row-by-row method works.