How to play Tents & Trees
Pair every tree with one orthogonally adjacent tent so that no two tents touch—not even diagonally—and every row and column matches its outside tent count.
Tap an empty square once to mark grass (·, no tent here), tap a second time to pitch a tent (⛺), and tap a third time to clear it. With a keyboard, Tab to a square and press Enter or Space. You can also click any row or column number to fill its remaining empty squares with grass.
- One-to-one pairing: Every tree connects to exactly one tent sharing its top, bottom, left or right edge. The total number of tents on the board equals the total number of trees.
- No touching tents: Two tents may never share an edge or a diagonal corner (all 8 surrounding squares around a tent must be grass or trees).
- Row and column sums: The numbers along the top and left edges tell you how many tents belong in that column or row.
Five solving techniques that avoid guessing
- Zero lines & non-adjacent cellsAny row or column marked 0 is entirely grass. Likewise, any cell that does not share an edge with at least one tree can never hold a tent.
- Lone-option treesWhen an unmatched tree has only one available orthogonal neighbour left, place its tent there immediately and mark all eight cells around that tent as grass.
- Line capacity (2-cell blocks)Two adjacent available cells in a row can hold at most one tent between them. If a row needs 3 tents and its open cells form two pairs plus one isolated cell, the isolated cell must be a tent.
- Tree-shadow eliminationIf an unmatched tree has only two possible tent cells (say, above and to its right), any outside cell that touches both options can be marked as grass.
- Reserved pairingsOnce a placed tent can belong to only one tree, lock that pair mentally: any other empty cell that touched only that tree no longer has a host tree and becomes grass.
Free unlimited practice
Choose 6×6, 7×7 or 8×8 and easy, medium or hard, then press New for another verified board. The library holds 270 original puzzles (30 per size and difficulty), each graded by a human-style deduction solver and verified for a single unique solution.
Already play Star Battle or Queens? Read Star Battle vs Tents: How Tree Pairing Replaces Colour Regions, or jump to Queens, Zip, and today's daily trio.
FAQ
How do you play Tents & Trees?
Place tents in the empty cells so that each tree has its own orthogonally adjacent tent (up, down, left or right), no two tents touch each other (not even diagonally), and the number of tents in each row and column matches the numbers outside the grid.
Can a tent touch two trees?
Yes. A tent may sit next to two or more trees, as long as there is still a valid one-to-one pairing where every tree claims its own distinct orthogonal tent and the total number of tents equals the total number of trees.
Do I ever need to guess in Solvedle Tents?
No. Every Tents puzzle on Solvedle is verified by a human-technique grader (zero-lines, lone-tree pairings, 2-cell block capacity and tree-shadow elimination) and checked by an exhaustive solver for a single unique solution.
How is Tents related to Star Battle?
Both puzzles forbid pieces from touching in any of the 8 surrounding cells (king-move adjacency). Star Battle uses fixed quotas per row, column and colour region, whereas Tents uses variable row/column counts plus a one-to-one orthogonal pairing with trees.