Plots (Puzzleship)

About Plots (Puzzleship)

Plots follows the Japanese puzzle Shikaku, whose name means roughly divide into squares. The grid holds clues, and you draw rectangles so that every rectangle contains exactly one clue, every cell ends up in one rectangle, and nothing overlaps. A classic clue gives an area; Plots adds shape clues that say a rectangle must be square, wide or tall.

Because nothing may overlap and nothing may be left over, a rectangle in the wrong place usually breaks a region somewhere else. The useful question is which clue can own each cell: a cell that only one clue can reach must belong to it. Puzzleship notes that LinkedIn's Patches uses a similar idea and that Plots is not affiliated with it.

Puzzleship publishes six grids of Plots a day, graded from very easy to ultra hard. Each day's grids are numbered and dated, the same for every player, and appear at midnight in your own time zone; earlier days stay playable in the archive. The site is free with ads, and a premium plan removes them.

How to play Plots (Puzzleship)

1. Open Plots and pick one of the day's six grids.
2. Read the clues: a number is an area, a shape word fixes the rectangle's proportions.
3. Drag on the grid to draw a rectangle around exactly one clue.
4. Tap a rectangle to remove and redraw it.
5. Finish when every cell is covered and every rectangle matches its clue.

Tips

• Corner clues often have only one possible rectangle; draw those first.
• Look for cells only one clue can reach; they decide that clue's rectangle.
• After each rectangle, check the gaps it leaves for space no remaining clue can fill.
• Large numbers next to the edge have fewer ways to fit than they seem.

Questions