How to play Quackle
Quackle is a calm daily logic puzzle. The board is a 7×7 grid split into five to seven irregularly-shaped ponds. Each pond prints a flock size — the exact number of ducks it should hold. Your job is to work out which cells hold those ducks.
Two rules govern every placement. Inside a pond, the ducks must form a single flock — every duck is directly up, down, left, or right of another duck in the same pond. At a pond border, no two ducks from different ponds may sit directly next to each other (up, down, left, or right); corner-to-corner is fine. A handful of duck clues start the puzzle off.
Press Check once you think the pond is solved. Quackle tells you which rule
failed — two flocks touching at a pond border, a flock that isn't joined up, or a
pond with the wrong number of ducks — but never which specific duck is wrong.
Reveal solution shows the answer with no penalty; you still get a shareable,
marked as revealed.
The twist
Most region-based puzzles either forbid two pieces sitting next to each other (queens-style) or count shaded cells along rows and columns (nonograms). Quackle flips both on their head: inside a pond, ducks must sit next to each other — that's the flock. Across ponds, ducks must not sit next to each other — that's the gap at the shore. Same adjacency rule, opposite signs either side of a pond border.
That flip is the whole twist. The shape of each pond carries real information — it decides which flock shapes even fit.
Strategy
- Pin on the clues. Every clue duck anchors its pond's flock. Trace outward from each clue — directly up, down, left, or right — and the flock has to keep connecting. That trace usually rules out a lot of cells at the pond's fringe.
- Start with the tightest ponds. A pond with a high ducks-to-cells ratio (say 4 ducks in 5 cells) has very few flock shapes that fit. Enumerate them, then knock out any that break the shore-gap rule against neighbouring ponds. What's left is usually one shape — or close to it.
- Borders carry information both ways. Every duck on a pond border forces the neighbouring cell across the border to be empty. And every cell known to be empty in a pond narrows where its flock can live. The two rules feed each other; alternate between them.
- Think in flock shapes, not cells. A pond of 6 cells needing 4 ducks only has so many connected 4-cell shapes. Listing them is faster than placing ducks one at a time and backing them out.
Worked example: the shore-gap cascade
Suppose one pond is a 3-cell strip that needs all 3 ducks. Every cell is a duck, no choice. Now every cell of every neighbouring pond that sits directly up, down, left, or right of those three cells must be empty — the shore-gap rule. That's often 4–6 cells removed from neighbouring ponds in one step. If a neighbour pond was already tight (say 3 ducks in 5 cells), losing 2 of its 5 usable cells collapses it to a forced placement. One fully-pinned pond cracks the next — the cascade is how the puzzle unspools.
Frequently asked questions
How do I play Quackle on mobile?
The whole game lives in a single 7×7 grid that fits comfortably on a 375px-wide screen. Tap a cell to toggle a duck on or off. Clue ducks are pinned and can't be removed. Buttons sit beneath the grid in thumb reach.
What time does Quackle reset?
Every puzzle is pinned to 00:00 UTC, so the whole world plays the same Quackle on the same date.
Are Quackle puzzles guaranteed solvable by pure logic?
Yes. Every shipped puzzle is generated, then verified by a logic solver that only uses forced-move deductions — no guessing, no search. If a candidate puzzle needs a guess, it's rejected before it reaches the queue.
Why can't I see my mistakes highlighted in green?
By design. Highlighting which ducks are correct would partially solve the puzzle for you on every Check. Quackle names which rule is broken — two flocks touching at a pond border, a flock that isn't joined up, or a pond with the wrong number of ducks — but never points at a specific duck.
More MinCalc games
Enjoyed Quackle? Try Targle — the target is given, the six-character equation isn't — or Sumrex, where you place one digit per row, column, and colour region so they add up to today's target.