PLAY MODES
Five ways to use Wang World
Tutorial
Use the 🎓 Tutorial button for thirty-one deterministic lessons covering Normal placement, Loop, palette supply symbols, board tile controls, Rotate, Rotation Only, Walls, Wildcard, Shuffle, Linked Tiles, Directional edges, Blank Edges, Sliding, Sokotile, Net, Tracks, Pipes, Equations, Homes, Cables, AND, OR, NOT, Linked Rotations, Forced Filled Positions, Fill Whole Board, Maximum Color Connection, Paired Rays, Board-Filling Rays, Pencil modes, and Tunnel edges. Two labeled diagrams appear over the board; interactive lessons use blinking sources and targets. Blank Edges, Sliding, Sokotile, Net, Tracks, Pipes, Cable, Logic Gate, Maximum Color Connection, Paired Rays, Board-Filling Rays, Pencil, and Tunnel lessons use Lines, Equations uses Edge Numbers, and all other lessons use Triangles; your previous visualization returns when you leave. Complete the requested move to enable the yellow Next button. When revisiting an earlier lesson, you may practice it again or use the still-available Next button immediately. Quit restores your earlier puzzle.
Compete Blind
Choose New → Compete Blind for an ordered series of short 3×3, 4×4, and 5×5 challenges. Each introductory challenge demonstrates a hidden rule. Rule names, Complexity, Help, and explanatory text remain concealed during the attempt, but necessary graphics, supplies, and tile controls provide clues. After a solution is validated, the completion dialog explains the discovered rule. After one minute without a move, an occasional animation offers a subtle hint. Progress is stored in this browser, Previous returns to unlocked challenges, and a solved challenge presents a button for the next one. The separate Blind leaderboard ranks the ten players who reached the highest challenge.
Competition
Choose New → Compete Open, or load a GLOBAL puzzle from the board library. Competition puzzles can be sorted by name, Complexity, board size, number of prototypes, or most recently added. Each row shows its author, Competition date, and current best leaderboard time, or Unsolved when nobody has completed it. The server starts a protected attempt, measures the elapsed time, and validates the completed board. Automatic solving and Pause are unavailable. A manual solution can earn Score and may qualify for that puzzle’s global leaderboard.
Local generation
Choose New → Free Mode → New Random Difficult Puzzle. The browser searches locally, loads the best validated prototype set it found, and starts a local clock. Pause, hints, solver tools, saved boards, and a browser-local personal best are available.
Free Mode presets
Choose New → Free Mode → Presets to load a named combination of every Free Mode flag and numeric setting. Wang World presets have curated names and are read-only. Presets you save remain in this browser and may be renamed or deleted. The board header shows the preset name, or User-defined when settings were selected manually; activate it to inspect every current movement and constraint.
Design
Choose New → Free Mode → Build your own. The board starts empty. Double-click an empty cell to create a tile. Use the left toolbar for Edge editing, Pencil drawing, moving or copying selected tiles, deliberate rotation, and click-or-drag erasing. Palette and board drops recompute finite supplies. Shift-click tiles in Move mode to select a group. On Fill Whole Board designs, Pencil overwrites cells and Move copies instead of removing its source. When Pencil reaches an existing same-color or Cable-facing edge, it joins the path without replacing that destination tile. The edge pressed on the first tile chooses the Pencil signal and acts as that tile’s input. Inside every path tile, move toward an edge to choose its output; moving toward a different edge transfers the tentative output there. Press Finish Design below the board. For Rotation Only, each designed tile stays assigned to its position and its orientation is scrambled; otherwise ordinary design tiles are removed while fixed walls remain, and you play with unlimited copies of the resulting prototypes. Designed sets may contain up to 100 prototypes and have Complexity zero unless measured explicitly; automatic generation remains capped at twelve prototypes.
PUZZLE TYPES
Boundary and rotation are independent rules
Board edges
By default, only edges between neighboring board cells must match and colors on the outside perimeter are unconstrained.
Loop Board
The left edge connects to the right edge and the top connects to the bottom, forming a torus. Read-only ghost tiles surround the board without corners. Each ghost mirrors the complete tile on the opposite edge, but only the edge facing the playable board remains colored. Wrapped mismatches are marked just like ordinary mismatches.
Restricted and Free Pencil
Restricted Pencil turns a mouse or pen drag into a path using only tiles available in the palette. Free Pencil instead creates each matching tile required by the traced path, reuses equivalent prototypes, and supplies created prototypes without limit while hiding ordinary palette cards. Start on a tile, or press an empty position to place the first fitting tile, then draw through adjacent empty positions. Backtrack one step to erase the tile just added. Drawing through a marked Rotatable Wall turns it, when possible, to match the incoming colored edge and continue through another colored side. Releasing the pointer ends the stroke without removing its tiles. The two Pencil modes are mutually exclusive. Drag and Drop may remain enabled for palette-to-board placement, but board tiles are removed with their trash buttons rather than dragged away.
Linked Positions and Rotations
Matching Linked Positions is a constraint requiring every position in a colored linked group to hold the same prototype. Their orientations may differ. Linked Rotations is a movement rule: rotating any occupied member rotates every occupied member by the same quarter-turn, even when they contain different prototypes. A newly placed member adopts the group’s current rotation phase. When both rules are active, completion also verifies that every linked member has the same orientation. Both linked rules may be combined with Rotate in Place Only. Linked backgrounds use light versions of the standard edge colors, and each placed member has a matching circular center window.
Mental
Mental puzzles must be solved without revising a placement. Once a tile enters the board it cannot be moved, replaced, rotated, marked, or recovered with Undo. Its hover trash button may discard it; use Clear to restart the whole board. Mental can combine with Loop, Walls, Wildcard, and finite tile supplies, but not Rotate, Rotation Only, or Shuffle.
Shuffle
Shuffle puzzles begin with the complete finite tile inventory already on the board in scrambled positions. Drag one tile onto another to swap them; tiles cannot be added, removed, parked, or moved outside the board. If Rotate is also active, each ordinary tile may rotate. A selected Wildcard is part of the inventory and must remain on the board.
Sliding
Sliding puzzles place a finite physical inventory on the board with one or more empty spaces. Click a tile to slide it into the first adjacent empty space, or drag it into a specific orthogonally adjacent empty space. On Loop boards, slides may cross connected opposite borders. Empty spaces act as all-blank tiles for edge matching and as zero on every edge in Equations, but remain empty after completion. In Design, empty positions are light gray and every tile edge cycles through blank as well as the available colors. Removing a tile blanks its neighbors automatically, and Finish Design uses the number of empty positions currently shown. Sliding supports Rotate, Loop, Walls, Wildcard, Directional, Blank Edges, Pipes, and Equations; it cannot combine with Rotation Only, Shuffle, Mental, Linked Tiles, or Exact Supply.
Rotate in Place and Fixed Positions
Rotate in Place Only is a movement rule: supplied board tiles may rotate but cannot move, be replaced, or be removed. Fixed Tile Positions is an independent constraint requiring each position to contain its assigned prototype at completion. Existing Rotation Only puzzles use both rules, while Free Mode can select either one independently.
Edge Matching
When enabled, colors on every pair of touching tile edges must match. It also applies between tiles and colored wall edges. When disabled, adjacent edge colors are unrestricted; ray illumination, forced positions, destinations, inventories, Equations, Tracks, and other selected constraints still apply. Existing puzzles use Edge Matching by default. Pipes, Blank Edges, Directional, Net, Rotate, Rotate in Place Only, Linked Rotations, and Rotatable Walls require Edge Matching.
Fill Whole Board
When enabled, every non-wall board position must contain a tile before the puzzle can be won. When disabled, a nonempty partial arrangement may win when all selected constraints are satisfied. Design starts with an empty board: click an empty position to add a tile, and use each tile’s corner trash button to remove it. Existing Sliding and Sokotile puzzles leave it disabled because their movement and inventory rules require open positions.
Paired and Board-Filling Rays
Every colored edge of an ordinary tile casts a straight ray outward through empty positions. Rays stop at the first tile, at a wall, or at the board boundary; walls are never illuminated. Paired Rays requires every ray to meet a counter-ray of the same color from the opposite edge of the first tile it reaches. Board-Filling Rays instead requires every empty non-wall position to be illuminated by at least one ray, without requiring paired endpoints. Board-Filling Rays can create puzzles in the spirit of Simon Tatham’s Light Up.
Maximum Color Connection
Sets the largest number of tiles permitted in any connected component of one color. Connections pass through equal-colored internal seams and may run straight, turn, branch, or cross Loop borders; a three-tile row and a three-tile L are both invalid when the maximum length is two, regardless of the tiles’ other edge colors. This supports puzzle designs reminiscent of, but not equivalent to, Simon Tatham’s Unruly.
Wildcard
Wildcard puzzles provide a finite supply of optional ? joker tiles. The number on the joker card shows how many remain. A joker may be placed on any non-wall cell and every one of its edges matches any neighboring tile or colored wall. In Shuffle, every joker belongs to the finite board inventory and is mandatory. Wildcard combines with Shuffle, Loop, Rotate, and Walls, but not Rotation Only.
Finite Tiles
An ordinary prototype may have a limited supply shared across the whole board. Its centered palette number shows how many copies remain; ∞ identifies an unlimited prototype. Board and parked copies both consume supply. Finite Tiles can combine with Loop, Rotate, Walls, and Wildcard, but are not used with Shuffle or Rotation Only.
Equations
Equations uses Edge Numbers and gives a target sum at the right of every row and below every column. For a row, add the left and right numbers of every tile or wall cell across that row. For a column, add the top and bottom numbers of every tile or wall cell down that column. Blank tile edges, wildcard tiles, and ? wall holes count as zero; ordinary numbered edges touching a wall hole still count normally. A completed line turns its target green when the sum is correct and red when it is wrong. When animations are enabled, an occasional single rounded rectangle surrounds every contributing edge number and the border total for one complete row or column. Equations cannot combine with Loop, but it supports Rotate, Rotation Only, Walls, Wildcard, Directional, Blank Edges, Linked Tiles, Mental, and finite supplies.
Exact Supply
Every ordinary prototype has a finite supply, and the total ordinary supply plus any wildcard jokers equals the number of playable board cells. There are no spare tiles: a completed board uses the entire inventory exactly. Rotated copies share their prototype supply, and parked tiles consume it. Exact Supply combines with Loop, Rotate, Mental, Linked Tiles, Walls, Wildcard, Directional, and Blank Edges, but not Rotation Only or Shuffle.
Unified and fixed tiles
Every board object is a tile with four independently chosen colored, blank, wildcard, Cable, or Tunnel edges. In Design, use the ⚙ Tile Properties control to edit all four edges and choose Fixed at this position, Home, and Can rotate. Home automatically implies Fixed. Fixed tiles use inventory, count for Tracks and Fill Whole Board, emit rays, contribute to Equations and color constraints, and otherwise behave exactly like movable copies; only movement and removal are prohibited. In Triangles, a wall symbol appears above a fixed tile. In Lines, the full wall symbol is a watermark behind its paths. A fixed tile rotates only when both Rotate and Can rotate are active. Rotate in Place Only makes every supplied tile rotatable without marking it Fixed. With Edge Matching enabled, a colored fixed edge cannot face an empty board position. A Home is always fixed, blocks rays, and needs an orthogonally adjacent non-Home tile; another fixed tile or Cable tile qualifies.
Cable edges
Black Cable edges may occur on movable or fixed tiles and require Edge Matching. Every Cable edge on one tile belongs to one internal network, while that tile’s colored, blank, and wildcard edges remain electrically separate. Cable-to-Cable contacts join networks. Cable-to-color contacts supply or receive that color. Cable-to-wildcard contacts are allowed but supply no color. An inactive Cable may terminate against a blank edge, but once its network carries a color that Cable-to-blank contact conflicts. Different source colors conflict, and an active Cable endpoint cannot face an empty board position. In Triangles, black triangles identify Cable edges. In Lines, black-bordered paths display the communicated color and are drawn over any fixed-tile watermark. Cable edges count as zero in Equations and do not emit rays; colored edges on the same tile behave normally. With Directional, each active network has one input and all remaining connected paths are outputs. Legacy linked fixed-Cable crossings remain readable, but new mixed-edge tiles no longer need that workaround.
Logic Gates
AND, OR, and NOT are isolated cable-like output edges that produce either red or no color. AND and OR read the two perpendicular edges on their tile; AND outputs red only when both inputs are red, while OR outputs red when either input is red. NOT reads the opposite edge and outputs red only when that input is not red. Inputs may be ordinary colors or Cable signals, and non-red colors count as false. Two AND/OR outputs on one tile must be opposite; two NOT outputs must be adjacent. Three or four gates, mixed binary and NOT gates, unstable feedback circuits, and incompatible outputs are highlighted red and cannot complete a puzzle, but remain editable and saveable. Gate orientation rotates with the tile. Logic Gates require Edge Matching, cannot be Tunnels, participate in solving and Complexity, and are not created by automatic generation.
Tunnel edges
A Tunnel edge is a colored, Directional, wildcard, or Cable edge marked by two outward arrows. With Edge Matching enabled, it crosses the exact blank edge of the adjacent tile and matches another facing Tunnel edge of the same type one position farther away. The skipped position must contain a tile with an exact blank side facing every touching Tunnel; an empty position, unrestricted Wall hole, color, or another Tunnel is not a valid local contact. An ordinary colored edge is not a valid distant endpoint. Tunnel Cable endpoints connect their distant Cable networks and communicate color beneath the skipped cell. Tunnels wrap on Loop boards, cannot themselves use blank edges, and are unrestricted when Edge Matching is off.
Directional
Each edge carries a colored half-triangle with a head or tail. Two touching edges match only when their colors agree and one is a head while the other is a tail; together they complete one regular triangle across the seam. Directional puzzles support Triangles, Bumps & dents, and Edge Numbers. Bumps & dents replaces colors with a distinct interlocking profile for every edge identity. Lines, Marks, and Flow are disabled while Directional is active.
Blank Edges
Tiles may have blank edges with no color. A blank edge matches only another blank edge. On an ordinary open board, every edge facing outside the board must be blank, as though invisible surrounding tiles imposed that constraint. No border tiles or border colors are drawn. In Loop, opposite edges connect normally, so there is no outside border constraint. Blank Edges Design starts with blank outward edges, keeps them blank, and adds blank to the cycle for internal edges.
Sokotile
Sokotile movement uses people, open positions, and an exact finite tile supply. Click a reachable open position to walk there, or click an adjacent tile to push it directly away from a person. Other people block paths, and Loop paths may cross opposite borders. Forced Filled Positions is now an independent constraint available with or without Sokotile. In Design, use the ◆ corner button to mark positions that must contain tiles at completion. With Sokotile they begin empty and use black backgrounds. Automatic Sokotile generation, solving, and Complexity measurement are not available yet.
Net
Net uses Lines and permits blank tile edges. In addition to ordinary edge matching, every tile carrying a particular color must belong to one connected component of that color. Two separate loops of the same color are therefore not a solution, even when every local edge matches. Different colors form independent networks. With Pipes, border pipes of the same color must reach the same component automatically through their touching tiles. Net supports Rotate, Rotation Only, Loop, Walls, Pipes, Mental, Linked Tiles, finite supplies, and Exact Supply, but not Directional, Wildcard, Sliding, Sokotile, or Equations.
Tracks
Tracks gives every row and column a target number of non-blank tiles. Colored tiles, wildcards, Cable tiles, and non-blank fixed tiles count as one; all-blank tiles, open Sliding or Sokotile positions, people, and border pipes do not count. A solution must match every ordinary edge and inventory rule and every Tracks target. Tracks forces Blank Edges and supports Walls, Pipes, Rotate, Wildcard, Shuffle, Sliding, Sokotile, finite supplies, and Linked Tiles. Rotation Only and Equations are unavailable.
Pipes
Pipes always uses Lines and accepts one or more colored border pipes. Colored pipes enter from selected border positions: the touching tile edge must have the same color, while every border position without a pipe requires a blank edge. Pipes can combine with Directional. Each directional border pipe contains a triangular arrow showing the required tile-edge direction; arrows that oppose across the border do not match. Empty board positions behave as unlimited all-blank tiles for spill checking, but remain visibly empty when Fill Whole Board is disabled. Internal matching is local: paths may turn, branch, end at tile centers, or form dry cycles. Red conflict squares mark spills. Design creates and updates border pipes, including direction, from outward colored edges. Shuffle and Rotation Only remain fully occupied; their all-blank tiles are ordinary physical tiles.
Rotate
Allow rotations can be combined with Loop and the other compatible rules. A prototype may be turned clockwise by 90°, 180°, or 270° after placement, but it is never reflected. The prototype tray shows one base orientation; rotated copies remain the same numbered prototype.
Boundary and rotation rules belong to the puzzle and are retained by local saves, imports, exports, Competition entries, and leaderboards.
COMPLEXITY
A deterministic search measurement
Complexity estimates how much backtracking a fixed solver performs, not how quickly one particular person will solve the board. It is separate from Score.
One deterministic seeded pass begins with each prototype or distinct orientation. At every step the solver examines all empty cells, chooses one with the fewest valid tiles, and uses a seeded tie order. A one-candidate tile is propagated without counting as a backtrack. A backtrack is counted only when propagation reaches a contradiction—an empty cell with no valid tile. Each pass is capped at one million placements. Its value is contradiction backtracks ÷ solutions; puzzle Complexity is the mean across all passes. Loop closure, Rotate orientations, Directional head-to-tail constraints, Blank Edges boundary constraints, walls and holes, Exact Supply, and Shuffle’s remaining finite inventory participate directly.
Consequence Score measures accumulated consequences of failed choices. When an attempted placement’s whole branch has no solution, undoing it contributes 1 ÷ the number of choices available when it was placed. Thus a bad two-way choice followed by ten forced placements contributes 10.5. Successful branches contribute zero; each pass is weighted consequences ÷ solutions and the displayed score is the pass mean.
The measurement also reports total solutions and contradiction backtracks across all passes. A failed cascade runs from the latest non-forced choice through subsequent forced placements to a contradiction; its mean and maximum lengths describe how long failure remains hidden. A cascade can start with forced placements when no earlier choice exists.
The same puzzle ID, prototypes, size, and boundary produce the same result. Displayed values may be rounded, while stored Competition values retain full precision.
KEYBOARD CONTROL
Shortcuts and navigation
- Ctrl/Cmd + Z — undo the last board change.
- Ctrl/Cmd + Y, or Cmd + Shift + Z — redo.
- Esc — clear all marked tiles when no dialog is open.
- With a Sokotile board cell focused, the Arrow keys move the selected person and push adjacent tiles.
- Tab and Shift + Tab — move through controls; Enter or Space activates the focused button.
- Inside this guide, Arrow keys move between categories; Home and End select the first or last category.
Shortcuts are ignored while typing in an input, memo, or selector so browser text editing remains normal.
MOUSE & TOUCH
Place, move, and design tiles
- Click/tap a board cell: an empty cell receives prototype 1. Repeated clicks cycle through every prototype and then return to empty.
- Drag from Prototypes: place that prototype on any board cell or in the surrounding play area. A centered number is the finite supply remaining; ∞ means unlimited. Rotation is available only when the puzzle allows it.
- Drag a placed tile: move it to another cell. Moving a tile out of a linked position clears its linked source group. Drop a board or floating tile on the prototype palette to remove it.
- Park a tile: drag it outside the board but within the play area. Up to ten reusable floating tiles are kept for the current session.
- Move a group: Shift-click placed tiles to mark them, then drag any marked tile. The whole shape moves atomically and cannot leave the board or cover an unmarked tile.
- Shuffle: drag a board tile onto another board tile to swap them. The displaced tile slides back to the source position.
- Rotation Only: click or tap a tile to rotate it clockwise. Tiles cannot be replaced, removed, moved, marked, parked, or dragged from the prototype tray.
- Rotate on desktop: move the pointer over a rotatable board or floating tile, then click the ↻ control in its upper-right corner. It turns clockwise by 90° without changing its prototype number.
- Rotate on phones: press and hold a placed board tile for about half a second. A parked floating tile uses its visible ↻ control.
- Zoom the board: use the − and + controls beside the board to reduce or enlarge every tile. The setting is retained with the current browser session.
- Design linked tiles: enable Linked Tiles, Shift-click at least two design positions, then choose Link selected. Use Unlink selected to remove selected members—groups of at least two remain linked—or Unlink all to remove every group. At most seven groups are available, one per standard edge color.
- Design finite tiles: click a prototype card to switch it between ∞ and a finite supply equal to its current occurrences on the design board.
- Design jokers: in Wildcard Design mode, use the top-right ? button to designate up to the selected finite number of joker cells.
- Design Sliding spaces: use the bottom-left −/+ button on any playable position to switch between a tile and an empty space.
- Design walls: use the top-left ▦ button to turn a design tile into a wall or back. Clicking a wall wedge cycles through a hole and the available colors. With Rotatable Walls, use the top-right ↻ icon to choose exactly which walls may rotate during play.
- Design mode: click/tap one of the four colored edge wedges. Its color advances, and an adjacent edge is synchronized so the design board remains matched.
Red outlines identify every tile involved in a mismatched edge. Rotation, like every board edit, supports Undo and Redo. Short sound cues accompany placement, switching, rotation, and successful completion.
ASSISTANCE
Hints, solver, solution, and Pause
Hints
Enable Hints below the board. Empty cells with one possible prototype show a large prototype number in an inset green rectangle; cells with several possibilities show smaller choices in an inset yellow rectangle. The surrounding margin retains Linked Tiles group colors. Incorrectly placed tiles show the matching prototype number or choices in a compact highlighted label over the tile. In Rotation Only, that label instead shows the additional clockwise angle or angles that make the fixed tile fit, such as 90°, 270°, or × when no rotation fits. In Visualization, Edge-only hints replaces position choices with guidance on mismatched placed edges.
Solver and stored solution
The solver gets up to ten seconds. A failed attempt does not affect scoring eligibility. A successful automatic solve, or loading a hidden generated solution or author editor board, completes the board without awarding Score or a leaderboard result. Edit puzzle begins immediately from the current board without solving first. A saved puzzle keeps its current play board and a separate hidden editor board; Load solution restores that editor board even during Design. Finish Design may retain an incomplete or conflicting author board.
Pause
Pause hides the board, floating tiles, and prototypes; blocks editing and exports; and stops the local clock. Paused time is excluded from local Score timing. Competition attempts cannot be paused.
LEADERBOARDS
Global competition and local bests
Each Competition puzzle has its own server leaderboard. Every puzzle ID has a distinct table, including puzzles with the Loop rule. The server validates the board and elapsed time, retains the fastest ten entries, and keeps only each username’s best result. Your 1–15 character profile name is reused automatically.
Generated and saved local puzzles use browser-local leaderboards. They record your personal best on this browser and are never published. Leaderboard time and cumulative Score are different: a result can earn Score without reaching the global top ten.
Use Leaderboards in the header to view puzzle size, boundary, Complexity, names, and completion times.
PROTOSETS
Reusable tile collections
Open the Protoset menu in the header for these actions.
- Save: store the current prototypes under their current or a new name in this browser.
- Save as…: keep the original and create another named local copy.
- Load: choose a browser-local protoset and start a fresh empty board.
- Export: download a text file containing one tile per line as top, right, bottom, and left color numbers.
- Export PDF: create printable prototype cards. Export SVGs downloads scalable tile artwork.
- Import: read a text prototype file. Values must be integers 1–7. Duplicate prototypes are rejected; when rotations are allowed, prototypes that differ only by a rotation are also rejected.
Text exports include a boundary-mode comment. Named puzzle saves do not contain the temporary floating-tile arrangement.
PUZZLES
Self-contained puzzle files
Open the Puzzle menu in the header for these actions.
- Save: store the current size, rules, complete protoset, current placements, hidden author editor board, walls, Complexity, and memo in this browser.
- Load: open the library containing GLOBAL Competition puzzles and LOCAL saved puzzles. No separate protoset is needed for newly saved puzzles.
- Estimate complexity: calculate the current non-Competition puzzle’s Complexity in a background browser worker.
- Submit for evaluation: privately send any correctly solved puzzle with at least 9 board cells, whether generated, designed, loaded, or imported. Your validated profile username is retained for author credit if the puzzle is approved. Competition puzzles and boards with fewer than 9 cells are rejected. Submissions make no Complexity claim and never enter Competition automatically.
- Export text: download a self-contained text puzzle with its protoset and a grid of one-based prototype numbers; zero means empty. Rotated placements use tokens such as
3r1. - Export PDF: open the browser print dialog with a vector copy of the current board, including its active visualization, rays, borders, targets, and symbols. Choose Save as PDF in the print dialog.
- Import: read a self-contained text puzzle. Legacy board files still load when their separately named protoset is available.
Named puzzles deliberately omit timer, Pause, undo history, marks, and floating tiles. Automatic reload recovery remains separate and is not exposed as a saved-game action.
INFORMATION COLLECTED
Local-first state and limited server records
Your profile, cumulative Score, preferences, generated sets, saved boards, local leaderboard results, and current session normally stay in this browser’s local storage.
Competition sends the puzzle ID, solved prototype indexes and orientations, and a tile-placement count to the server. The server measures elapsed time and validates the board. If you submit a qualifying leaderboard result, its username, time, and date are stored for the public table.
Private aggregate completion statistics retain the puzzle, measured time, placement count, and a hash derived from a random browser identifier. They store no raw browser ID, IP address, username, user agent, or solved board. Active attempt tokens and timing state are retained for up to two hours so deployments do not invalidate an attempt.
Locally submitted puzzles are stored privately with their rules, protoset, walls, and supplied solution, but no profile name, memo, timer, browser identifier, or Complexity claim. They are rate-limited, temporary, and never promoted automatically. The feedback form stores its category, message, optional name, and submission date privately on this server. Network addresses may be processed transiently for abuse prevention and rate limiting.
LOCAL SCORE
Complexity rewarded for manual speed
Score units are round(Complexity ÷ elapsed minutes). For example, Complexity 400 solved manually in four minutes awards 100 units. Competition uses server-measured time; local play uses its pause-aware browser clock.
The total beside the trophy is cumulative and remains only in this browser. A successful solver run or automatic solution loading earns no Score; a failed solver attempt does not disqualify later manual scoring.
Changing an existing profile name asks whether to clear the total earned under the old name. Clearing Score does not erase local or global leaderboard records.
PUZZLE GENERATION
Ten seconds of local Random Protoset search
Select width and height independently from 2 through 30, one through seven available colors, a finite joker count, and optional Loop, rotation, Directional, Blank Edges, Equations, Exact Supply, Wildcard, and Walls rules in New. New Random Difficult Puzzle runs a ten-second background search. It repeatedly samples unique prototypes, solves a candidate, removes unused prototypes, validates periodicity, measures deterministic Complexity, and retains the highest completed result. Directional search treats each color’s head and tail as complementary edge values. Blank Edges search requires blank outward edges on ordinary boards. Equations search derives row and column targets from each hidden solution and includes them in Complexity. Generated sets contain at most twelve prototypes.
Without rotations or Loop, generation applies bounded rectangular and special-polyomino periodicity checks through area min(board area, 40); Loop generation requires the selected rectangular torus and rejects supported proper rectangular and compatible skew divisor periods. With rotations, each prototype is expanded into its distinct orientations for solving and Complexity, and no two listed prototypes may belong to the same rotation orbit. Ordinary no-smaller-period filtering cannot apply: every tile together with its 180° orientation can form a 2×2 torus. Rotate candidates are therefore ranked by expanded-orientation Complexity after validating the requested board solution.
If the result beats the same-size, same-boundary Competition benchmark—or no such benchmark exists—it is submitted privately for human review. Review candidates are never promoted automatically.
VISUALIZATION
Change appearance without changing the puzzle
Open Visualization in the header to select:
- Edge triangles: classic four colored wedges, or colored half-triangle heads and tails in Directional puzzles.
- Bumps & dents: Directional-only interlocking edge profiles; each edge identity has a distinct shape instead of a color. Protrusions extend beyond the tile’s square footprint into neighboring recesses of exactly the same profile.
- Edge lines: narrow colored bars near each side for ordinary, non-Directional puzzles.
- Edge marks: symbolic edge marks designed to reduce reliance on color alone.
- Flow paths: crossing path-style edge connections.
- Edge Numbers: monochrome values printed at each edge, including signed values for Directional heads and tails, so matching does not depend on color.
- Show animations: enables all motion, including occasional synchronized Linked Tiles windows, wall-hole ?, board joker, Loop passage, and Equations calculation effects. Click the Wang World logo to replay one effect appropriate to the current puzzle mode while also rotating the logo. Turn animations off to disable both automatic and logo-triggered effects.
Directional puzzles support Edge triangles, Bumps & dents, and Edge Numbers. If Lines, Marks, or Flow is active when one is loaded, Wang World switches to Edge triangles and disables those incompatible choices.
Walls use the selected visualization too, with every edge terminating at the dark fixed-wall block. A wall hole is marked with a question mark on its side, indicating that any edge value is accepted.
Visualization can hide gaps between tile cells and enable edge-only hints. These settings alter rendering only; they do not rotate prototypes or change a loaded puzzle’s edge values. The 1–7 color limit for future generation and Design is in New → Free Mode.
HOW TO CONTRIBUTE
Send an idea or report a problem
Open About in the header and use Send feedback. Choose General, Bug report, or Idea; add an optional name; describe what happened or what you would like changed; answer the small anti-abuse question; and press Send feedback.
For a bug, include the active rules, board size, browser/device, what you expected, and steps that reproduce it. Do not include passwords, private tokens, or other sensitive information.
Feedback is stored privately on the Wang World server for review. It is not posted publicly, and submitting it does not automatically alter Competition puzzles.
VERSION HISTORY
Visible changes by release
Only changes visible to players are listed. Maintenance-only releases and work completed before numbered versions are omitted.