Zen Garden

Twenty-one squares of sand, a few stones set among them, and a rake. Push the rake and it runs in a straight line until a wall or a stone stops it, drawing a line through every square it crosses. You only get to turn where it has already stopped, so the puzzle is not "where do I go next" — it is choosing runs that leave nothing behind and cross nothing twice. There is no timer, no move limit and no way to lose: the board counts the squares still smooth, and you watch that number reach zero.

It runs entirely on your device: 0 network requests, works offline. No ads, no account, nothing to buy, and no betting, money or prizes of any kind.

1. Focus the board — click it, or press Tab until it is focused.
2. Push the rake with the arrow keys. It runs the whole way in that direction and stops only at a wall or a stone; it never stops in the middle of open sand.
3. Read the lines. A square raked across shows ═, a square raked up or down shows ║, and a square you have crossed twice shows ╬. Smooth sand is a faint dot, and a stone is a filled circle.
4. Press Enter if you want the longest fresh line taken for you. It is a convenience, not a solver — the run that turns over the most sand right now is usually the one that strands a square behind it.
5. Tap any square in line with the rake to push it that way. The rake still runs the whole distance; the square you tapped picks the direction, not the stopping point.
6. Get "smooth" to zero. Compare your strokes against "fewest possible" if you want a target, or ignore it entirely and take as long as you like.

How do you rake every square of a sand garden exactly once?

By working backwards from the stones. The rake can only stop where something stops it, so every stone and every wall is a place you are allowed to turn — and a perfect raking is a route that uses those turning points in an order that never re-enters a line it has already drawn. The practical method is to look for squares with only one way in: a square in a dead-end pocket has to be reached by the run that ends there, so that run is forced, and forced runs chain together into most of the answer. Then work out which end of the garden you must finish at, because the last run has nowhere to turn after it. What almost never works is raking the longest line available each time — the long run early cuts the garden in half and leaves a square stranded behind it, which costs you a crossing later.

Can I get stuck, or lose?

No. Raked sand does not block the rake, so there is no dead end to back out of and no undo to hunt for — you can always push again, and a square you have already raked simply picks up a second line. Every garden is also checked before you see it: from every position the rake can possibly reach, every square of sand must still lie on some run from somewhere it can get to. That check is what makes "no way to lose" a fact about the board rather than a promise about the tone.

How do I know the garden can be raked perfectly at all?

Because the route was built first and the stones were placed to serve it. The generator walks a rake from the starting square, and every time it wants the rake to stop somewhere, it sets a stone on the square just beyond. A stone can only go on sand nothing has raked yet, so a stone laid late can never sit on, shorten or divert a run made earlier — the garden and its solution grow together. The finished layout is then handed to a separate solver that finds the shortest route covering every square exactly once, without ever looking at how the garden was made. If that solver comes back empty, the garden is thrown away.

What does "fewest possible" mean, exactly?

It is the real minimum, not an estimate. Every route that crosses no square twice is searched exhaustively, and the shortest is counted. That is cheap here because runs are forced to the wall: most positions have only one or two legal runs left, so there are only dozens of positions to look at. Matching that number means you raked the garden as well as it can be raked. Beating it is not possible — but crossing a square twice to save a stroke is, and it costs you more than it saves.

Is there any money, betting or in-app purchase in this?

None, and there never will be. No currency, nothing to buy, no lives to refill, no timer pushing you towards one.

Does it work offline?

Yes. Once the page has loaded once, the whole game is on your device — the garden, the rules and the solver that worked out the minimum. No server is involved in play at any point.

Can I play it with a keyboard or a screen reader?

Both. Arrows push the rake, Enter takes the longest fresh line. Every square is announced in words — smooth sand, raked across, raked down the board, raked twice, rock — so nothing depends on telling tints apart, and each state carries its own glyph as well. After every stroke the live region reports what each of the four directions would do from where the rake now stands, including which ones are blocked, so you can pick a run without seeing the board at all.

Five squares by five, with at most five stones, so around twenty-one squares of sand. The rake stops only at a wall or a stone — never in open sand, and never on a stone. Turning is only possible where it has stopped. Nothing is timed, nothing is scored against a clock, and the round ends only when the last smooth square has been raked.

Stone Drop is the other calm puzzle here that cannot be lost by construction, and turns on the order of your moves rather than the shape of your route. Mirror Fold is untimed too, but it is about symmetry. Route Plan is the other game where the whole problem is choosing a path.

Bookmark this page (Ctrl+D, or ⌘D on Mac) or install the app — it works offline the next time you need it.