Arpent

About Arpent

Arpent is a short planning puzzle about building a landscape. Each day it deals the same queue of twenty tiles to every player, in a fixed order, and you place each one on an empty cell of a 6x6 grid. The full queue is visible from the start, so you can plan ahead before you commit a single tile.

There are five terrain types and each scores from its neighbours. A Forest gets 3 points for each adjacent Forest. A connected chain of N Lakes scores N squared. A House gets 4 points for each adjacent Forest or Lake and loses 4 for each adjacent Factory. A Factory gets 3 for each adjacent Factory and 5 for each adjacent House. A Field gets 2 for each empty cell next to it, counted at the end, so leaving gaps can pay.

Each day also has a modifier. Many days are a Standard Day with the original rules, but others double the Lake chains, make Factories punish Houses harder, block four cells, narrow the grid to 5 by 7, count diagonal neighbours, stop border tiles from scoring, cut the queue to sixteen tiles with a multiplier, or reward mirrored pairs. The day also shows an objective score to aim for.

The daily game cannot be undone and is timed: score comes first on the leaderboard, and the shorter time breaks a tie. New players start with an untimed discovery round that walks through the five terrains, and after the daily game a training mode opens with unlimited seeds, any modifier and free undo. You can challenge friends to the same day, and the game keeps a streak.

How to play Arpent

1. Open arpent.day; first-time players start with a short discovery round, then today's landscape opens.
2. Read the modifier of the day and the full queue of twenty tiles shown beside the grid.
3. Place the tile marked Place now on any empty cell; the next tile in the queue follows.
4. Group tiles so their neighbours score: Forests together, Lakes in one chain, Houses beside nature and away from Factories.
5. When the last tile is down, see your score, your rank on the world leaderboard and the day's distribution.

Screenshots

Tips

• Look at the whole queue before the first move and decide roughly where each terrain will live.
• Keep Lakes in one connected chain: four Lakes in a line score 16, two pairs only 8.
• A House beside a Factory gives the Factory 5 but costs the House 4, so a single House between Factories can still be worth it.
• Fields score from empty cells at the end, so put them where you expect gaps to stay.

Questions