Acequia

Tip clay pots and follow the water through carved stone. Seventy-four gardens, each a puzzle of pours, until every lotus blooms.

Tip a clay pot and its water runs along carved channels in stone. A full pot lets the water pass. A pot with room drinks it. A wooden rocker turns the water, then swings the other way. When every plant has drunk its fill, the garden blooms.

The order of your pours is the puzzle.

A COURTYARD OF CARVED WATER

Every garden is a courtyard of pale glazed stone standing in a still pool, and its water is what glows. You see it run, leap a full pot, break into spray on a stone and fall from the edge into the pool. The chapters begin in morning light, pass through dusk and end by moonlight. Play upright or on its side.

SEVENTY-FOUR GARDENS, TEN CHAPTERS

Each garden is built around one idea. Twenty-five of them need ten pours or more, and the longest takes fourteen. New pieces arrive one at a time: the fallen leaf, the sluice gate, the thirsty plant, the bulb, the water-clock gate and the cracked jar. The later chapters bring time into the garden, counted in pours, never in seconds.

LEARN BY PLAYING

Whenever a new rule appears, a short card shows it at work, and then you play. Every new piece has its own card, and the Guide shows every piece at work in one place.

CALM AND FAIR

• No time limits, no lives, no ads, no account, and nothing tracks you.

• No numbers on the board. Each pot holds a cup for every drop, and a cup glows when it is full.

• Undo is free, as often as you like.

• Hint says whether a garden can still bloom, and gives one pointer in each garden when you need it. Once you have used it, from chapter two on, you can leave that garden for later and play the next.

• Water that is lost is seen to be lost, so you can learn from it.

FREE TO START, ONE PURCHASE

The first two chapters, thirteen gardens, are free to play, and so is one of the hard gardens from later in the game, so you can see where it goes. One purchase opens the other eight chapters: sixty gardens and six new pieces, on every iPhone and iPad signed in to your Apple Account. No subscription. No ads.

YOUR GARDENS FOLLOW YOU

If you use iCloud, your progress is kept in your own account, so your other devices have it too. Twenty Game Center achievements mark each chapter and each new piece, with four more for the longer journey. Nothing asks you to sign in, there is no leaderboard, and there is no prize for fewer pours.

FOR EVERYONE

Acequia is in forty-five languages. In Arabic, Hebrew and Urdu the screen reads from right to left while the courtyard stays as it is, and every number in a sentence is written in words. Under Reduce Motion every motion has a calmer form, color is never the only signal, text stands clear of the water, and the game is dark from its first frame.

ABOUT THE NAME

Acequia is the Spanish word, from the Arabic as-sāqiya, for the channels that carry water to a courtyard garden. Here they are carved in stone.