A PLAYFUL STUDY OF HIDDEN CURRENTS
Turn a seed.
Change the whole silk.
Little whirls live between the threads.
Turn the pearl seeds until the garden
looks just like its keepsake.
A single seed
Tap a bright seed to turn it. Dim seeds are stitched in place.
Eight little keepsakes
0 of 8 gatheredGold for a shortest solution without nudges. Copper for every other lovely finish. Progress stays on this device.
A small guide to the hidden garden
Turn the bright seeds to match every cell in the keepsake. Warm whirls, cool whirls and still pearls all count. A mint edge means that cell matches. A peach edge means it is still different. Each turn affects the cells touching that seed, so fixing one whirl can move another.
Tap a bright seed to select it and turn it right. The two big buttons turn the selected seed either way. Dim seeds are fixed. Each seed has five orientations; five turns make a full half-turn, because both ends of a seed are equivalent. Undo and Reset are free. A nudge selects the next turn on a shortest solution from the current field; it does not make the turn for you.
Keyboard: 1–6 selects a bright seed; ← / → turns it; U undoes; R resets; H nudges. Tab and Enter work on every button. Optional sound is synthesized locally.
What makes a whirl?
A seed stands for a headless liquid-crystal director, at 0°, 36°, 72°, 108° or 144°. Walk clockwise around the four corners of a cell and add the shortest signed orientation changes, treating 180° as the same direction. A +180° sum is the warm +½ defect; −180° is the cool −½ defect; zero is still. The pinned outer boundary fixes the total signed charge. This puzzle computes those windings exactly. Its discrete rotation rules are invented; it is not an active-fluid or device simulation.
Inspired by current active-nematic defect-transport research. Free, local play: no account, credits, server or downloads.