Plot (Mind Loft)

Plot is the shikaku on Mind Loft, a free site of daily browser games. The puzzle is also known as divide by squares. Numbers are scattered across the board, and each one gives the size of the plot it belongs to. You divide the whole board into rectangles so that every rectangle contains exactly one number and covers exactly that many cells.

On the day we looked the board was 10 by 10 with 26 plots to claim. You drag from corner to corner to claim a plot, tap a plot to give it back, and slide off the board mid-drag to cancel. A plot that has the right size but sits in the wrong place turns red and striped, and the header counts your errors, your time and how many of the hundred cells you have claimed. Undo and a hint button sit under the grid.

Every board has exactly one solution and can be solved by deduction alone. The usual way in is a number that has only one rectangle it can form, often a large number near a corner or a small one boxed in by its neighbours.

A new board goes up at midnight US Eastern Time, and the Sunday Edition steps up to 12 by 12. Mind Loft names Etch (nonogram), Hedge (loop) and Suds (sudoku) as its neighbours, and it suits anyone who already plays a daily shikaku such as Rasterix or Mosaik.