Grade (Third Place Games)

About Grade (Third Place Games)

Grade is one of the small daily puzzles on Third Place Games, beside its hex sequel Regrade, the word game Dovetail and the stone-flipping Ponderings. The board is drawn as a survey map: every square holds an elevation, shown both as a number and as a colour on a terrain ramp from lowland green to snowcap white.

The rules are short. Squares that touch up, down, left or right may differ by at most 1, since a jump of 2 or more would be a cliff. Every row and every column must have exactly one summit, meaning its highest value appears in only one square; an arrow at the end of each line turns green when the summit is unique and red when it is not. Squares marked with a plus are surveyed spot elevations and cannot be changed. Each map has one solution.

Three maps come out each day: a 5x5 using heights 1 to 5, a 6x6 that adds height 6, and an 8x8 that uses seven heights. They follow the US Eastern date, so everyone gets the same boards, and each daily map can be played once. A perfect map is worth 1,000 points on 5x5, 1,500 on 6x6 and 3,000 on 8x8; each move beyond one per empty square costs 5 points and each second beyond par (1, 2 and 5 minutes) costs 1. Placing, erasing, changing and undoing all count as moves.

The daily maps are free and need no account. Finished maps can be shared as a grid of coloured squares that shows how often you changed each square without revealing any heights. A one-time US $1 unlock adds unlimited practice maps. Settings offer other colour ramps, such as bathymetry and magma, and a mode that hides the numbers so you read heights by colour alone.

How to play Grade (Third Place Games)

1. Open Grade on thirdplacegame.com and pick today's 5x5, 6x6 or 8x8 map, then press Start.
2. Select an empty square and tap a height from the number bar; squares with a plus are fixed and cannot change.
3. Keep every pair of touching squares within 1 of each other, up, down, left and right.
4. Make sure each row and column has exactly one square holding its highest value; the arrows at the edges turn green when it does.
5. Finish the map in as few moves and as little time as you can, since extra moves and seconds over par cost points, then share your result grid.

Screenshots

Tips

• Think before you tap: every change and undo counts as a move, and moves beyond one per empty square cost 5 points each.
• A fixed 1 next to an empty square limits it to 1 or 2, and two fixed squares two steps apart pin the square between them.
• Look for where each row's summit can go first: once a line's peak is placed, every other square in it must be lower.
• Start with the 5x5, whose par is one minute, before the 8x8 with seven heights and a five-minute par.

Questions