Glossary

The chart

Chart. Today’s island: around forty-eight hexes drawn in the style of a printed hydrographic survey, with a compass rose, a coastline, sheet boundaries and landmarks. A new chart is drawn every day at 5am New York time and is the same for every player. Charts are numbered from the first day the game was published.

Hex. One cell of the chart. Every hex is printed as one of six grounds and carries a two-letter code for it. A hex has up to six neighbours; hexes on the coast have fewer.

The lie. The one hex drawn as something it is not. Finding it is the whole game. The survey notes describe the chart as printed, including the lie’s own printed ground, and only one hex can satisfy all of them.

Sheet. A district of the chart, numbered in Roman numerals (Sheet I, Sheet II and so on) and separated from the next by a dashed district boundary. A note that names a sheet restricts the lie to it.

Coastline. The solid outer edge of the island. Nothing lies beyond it, which is why coastal hexes have fewer neighbours and are quick to test against a neighbour-count note.

Compass rose. The device in the corner of the chart that shows which way is north. Bearings in the notes are read against it. The hex grid’s rows run east to west.

Drawn by the machine, drawn by a setter. The line under the tier tabs says who made today’s chart. Most charts are generated and proved by the game’s own solver; some are set by players in the apps and chosen for the daily rotation after other players have rated them.

The six grounds

Every hex is printed as one ground. Three lie under the tide and three are dry land, and each has its own engraved linework and two-letter code. Notes refer to grounds by name.

Shoal (Sh). Shallows over sand, printed as a stipple of dots. Under the tide.

Reef (Re). Rock at or just below the surface, printed as a cross-hatch. Under the tide.

Saltmarsh (Sa). Tidal marsh, printed as tufts on a flat. Under the tide, in the chart’s reckoning.

Scree (Sc). Loose rock on a slope, printed as scattered strokes. Land.

Heath (He). Open upland with low growth, printed as small chevrons. Land.

Sink (Si). A hollow or sinkhole, printed as concentric rings. Land.

Landmarks and readings

A landmark is something a surveyor planted or found; a reading is something the instruments recorded. Each is drawn solid when the survey confirmed it and dashed when it was only reported, and a note may name the kind, the state, or both.

Beacon. A fixed mark planted by the survey. Notes often take bearings from beacons.

Trig point. A triangulation station, a known fixed position. Drawn as a small pillar.

Wreck. A sunken vessel the survey found. Drawn as a hull.

Surveyed, reported. The two states a landmark can be in. Surveyed means the survey party confirmed it, drawn solid; reported means it was told to them and not yet confirmed, drawn dashed. “Every reported trig point” means only the dashed ones.

Magnetic anomaly. A reading: a place where the compass misbehaved. Drawn as a small symbol on the hex.

Tidal race. A reading: a fast tide running between obstacles. Drawn as paired arrows.

The survey notes

The clues. Every note is true of the lie, and the notes together are satisfied by exactly one hex. These are the forms a note can take.

Bearing note. “The lie lies north-east of every beacon.” Strict and universal: the lie is north of each beacon and east of each beacon, both at once. Two bearings corner the lie between two sets of landmarks.

Drawn-on note. “The lie is drawn on reef or sink.” The ground printed on the lie is one of those named.

Neighbour-count note. “The lie touches exactly one heath.” Exactly that many of the lie’s neighbours are printed as the named ground.

Within-distance note. “The lie lies within two of a surveyed wreck.” Distance counted in hex steps from the nearest qualifying landmark.

Shortest-path note. “The lie lies on a shortest path from a beacon to a trig point.” On a hex grid several routes can tie for shortest; the lie is on one of them.

Isolation note. “Nothing adjacent to the lie shares its ground.” Every neighbour of the lie is printed as a different ground from the lie itself.

Sheet note. “The lie falls on Sheet II.” The lie is inside that district.

Denial. A note phrased in the negative, on the Hard chart and above: “The lie is not within three of any trig point.” Still true. Find every hex the plain claim would fit, and rule them all out.

Sounding, depth note. On the Fiendish chart hexes carry printed depths in fathoms, one of which is a misprint on the same hex as the lie. Depth notes describe the true depth: “shallower than the number printed on it”, “matches a number printed on a hex beside it”. The two sets of notes narrow each other.

Playing

Turning the chart over. The chart is face down until you choose to begin, so nothing can be read before the clock runs. Turning it over starts the clock, which never pauses.

Marks. Your own notes on the board, which the chart never reads. One click marks a hex as a maybe, two as probably, and holding it strikes it out. Clear marks wipes them.

Ticking a note off. The Use button on a note in the strip. It records that you have applied the note in full, and the order you tick notes off is what the share grid shows afterwards.

Correction. Your answer. Name the lie, select the hex, and file. You get three. A refused correction is stamped on the chart with an X in the cartographer’s ink and adds three minutes to your time. Spend all three and the day is over.

Judged time. The time on your record: the clock, plus three minutes for every refused correction, plus one minute for every note shown on the map on the Standard chart. The daily board ranks on it and share links carry it.

Tiers. Four charts a day of rising difficulty: Casual and Standard, free in the browser; Hard, in the apps; Fiendish, with the depth axis, for members of the Guild.

Rollover. The moment the day’s chart changes: 5am New York time, every day, for everyone.

Keeping score

Streak. Consecutive days finished with the chart solved. A day finished with the lie escaped does not extend it, and breaks it unless a freeze is left. It is kept for your browser or account and shown on the cover before you play.

Freeze. What saves a streak from a lost day or a missed day. One is granted each calendar month to every player, and it does not stockpile. Guild members have them without limit.

Share grid. The spoiler-free result: one tile per note in the order you struck them off, with the note that held you longest in a different colour, and never what any note said or where the lie was. The link under it carries your time as a challenge.

Daily board, ladder, rating. In the apps, the daily board ranks the day’s judged times, the rating tracks how hard the charts you solve are, and the ladder is the season-long standing among Guild members.

Duel. A head-to-head in the apps: the same chart, two clocks, and a result that counts for both.

The Cartographer’s Guild. The optional membership in the apps. It adds the Fiendish chart, the full archive, the ladder, unlimited freezes and the setter tools. The daily chart, the streak and the share grid stay free everywhere.