Sunflowers Master keeps every rule from Sunflowers and removes the easy opening. Numbers still count the sunflowers in the squares around them. Double-tap, or right-click, to plant. A single tap marks a square empty. A faded number, including zero, fills the remaining empties around it. The garden is still pure logic. A guess that happens to be right is still a guess, and the grid is built so you do not need one.
What the master puzzle adds is a pencil. You can try an idea, and the marks stay light until you keep them or throw them away. The pencil is not a hint. It is how you test a branch without vandalising the grid. There is still a hint button for the moment a logical step will not show itself. One garden a day. Older ones stay in the archive.
How a round works
- Numbers show how many sunflowers are around them.
- Double-tap to plant. Right-click does the same on a desktop.
- A single tap marks an empty.
- Tap a faded number, including 0, to fill the remaining empties around it.
- Pencil mode lets you try marks. Tap the pencil again to keep them or throw them away.
- The puzzle can be solved by logic alone.
Zeros still exist, and they are still the right place to start. They simply give you less of the garden for free. After the forced plants, you will reach a point where two arrangements both look locally legal. That is the moment the pencil earns its place. Mark one arrangement lightly, follow it until a number breaks, and discard it. The break is the information.
How to use the pencil without cheating yourself
Count before you plant. If a number’s remaining count equals its remaining neighbours, they are all flowers. If the remaining count is zero, they are all empty. Anything else is not yet a plant. The master grid punishes the early plant more than the slow count, because a wrong flower in a tight garden breaks several numbers at once and the picture gets harder to unread.
Use the pencil for a hypothesis, not for decoration. A useful pencil mark is one that would force something else. Follow that force. If a number ends up with too many flowers, or can no longer reach its count, discard the branch. Accepting a pencil layer you have not checked is just guessing with extra steps. The hint remains available when you are convinced the next move is determined and you cannot see why. A clean solve is still the one that does not need it.
Work from whatever is already finished. A faded number is a gift: tap it. A number that is one away from done is the next gift. The middle of a master garden looks ambiguous until the borders have removed a shape. Staring at the middle first is how the pencil fills up with marks that do not force anything.
Where it sits
Play Sunflowers for the daily meadow. Play Sunflowers Master when you want the same logic to hold out, and when you want a pencil for the moment the grid offers you two stories. The other long sits are Zanagrams Master, if you want letters, and 18 Words, if you want a clock.