How to play Nook

The rules

1. 1

   Move Rollo

   Use the on-screen arrows, arrow keys, or WASD. Rollo walks one space at a time. You can also tap a clear space to walk there along a clear route; this never pushes a tile for you.

2. 2

   Give a tile a push

   Stand next to a tile and move toward it. The tile slides straight until it reaches the first empty home or the last clear space before a wall, board edge, or another tile. Rollo steps into the space the tile left.

3. 3

   Tuck every tile home

   Any tile can fill any home. A filled home shows a check. You can push a tile out of its home to make room, but you can only push one tile at a time and can never pull. Fill every home to solve the puzzle.

Start with a little practice

Open How to play in the game to try a separate two-tile board. Push the first tile to the right, then walk around the wall to push the other. Practice never touches your daily save, hint count, or statistics.

An empty home stops a sliding tile even when there are clear spaces beyond it. A tile already on a home can be pushed off again. Remember that Rollo follows only one square, even when a tile slides farther.

Three daily difficulties

Mini has two tiles and a short route. Classic has three tiles and more arranging to do. Tricky uses four tiles with a longer chain of pushes. Every board fits the same small five-by-five play area.

Each difficulty has a separate daily board, save, and result. Everyone gets the same board on the same date. Switching difficulties keeps your moves, and every published board has a verified solution.

Undo, redo, and restart

Try a route freely. Undo and redo move one step at a time, including walking. Z undoes a move; Shift+Z or Y redoes one while the board has keyboard focus. Restart returns to the beginning, and Redo retraces the previous route until you try a different move.

A tile can get stuck against an edge or another tile. Look at where Rollo needs to stand before pushing. If an arrangement is stuck, undo some moves or restart. There is no penalty for taking a different route.

Optional hints

A hint finds a route from your current arrangement, walks Rollo into position, and makes one useful push. You confirm before using it. This marks the puzzle as assisted, labelled With hints even after undoing the move or restarting. Hinted wins are just as welcome and count toward your streak.

If the arrangement has no solution, the hint tells you to undo or restart and does not count a hint. The search runs separately from play; if it cannot find a route within its limit, it says so. Moving or changing your account cancels an old search.

A result worth sharing

The finished board stays visible. Your result shows the number of pushes and moves on your final route, with assistance stated clearly. Undo removes a move from that route; there is no competitive leaderboard.

Share copies a small spoiler-free result with the date number, difficulty, push count, move count, and hint classification. It never includes the daily board or solution. If copying is unavailable, the result stays selectable.