chords

# Chord

Chord is a compact logic puzzle about placing shapes into colored districts.

Every New Chord is uniquely solvable from its complete board state: district layout, district requirements, and starting clues.

## How To Play

Place the required shapes so that each active shape appears once in every:

- Row

- Column

- District

A cell can contain only one shape. Empty cells are allowed.

Click an empty cell to choose a legal shape. Click a placed, non-clue shape to remove it. Click outside the board to close an open placement menu.

## Shapes

- **Circle** cannot share an edge with a Diamond.

- **Diamond** cannot share an edge with a Circle.

- **Triangle** counts for its district only when it touches a Diamond edge-to-edge.

- **Square** counts for its district only when it touches both a Circle and a Diamond edge-to-edge.

A red slash means a Triangle or Square is not currently supported, so it does not fulfil its district requirement yet.

Diagonal contact does not count as touching.

## District Requirements

Floating callouts show which shapes each district still needs.

Use **Requirements: always** to display every callout, or switch to **Requirements: hover** to show only the district under your pointer.

Some districts have an arch linking two separated areas. These are tunnel districts: both parts count as one district, but the arch does not create adjacency. Shapes across a tunnel do not touch, support, or conflict with one another.

## Helpful Tools

- **Show placements**: displays small icons for every shape that can legally be placed in each empty cell right now.

- **Resolve singles**: fills one cell that has exactly one currently available shape. It scans from top to bottom, then left to right.

- **Hint (T)**: highlights a compatible placement.

- **Undo / Redo**: revise your plan.

- **Show solution**: reveals the generated reference solution.

- **Reset board**: restores the puzzle to its starting clues.

## Difficulty

New Chord difficulties change only the number of fixed starting clues:

- **Guided**: 3 clues

- **Standard**: 2 clues

- **Expert**: 1 clue

## Feedback

If something feels unclear, too easy, too difficult, or visually hard to read, please share the puzzle difficulty and a short description of what happened.