1. Stop tapping, start counting
The game is untimed. Nothing is gained by speed and every stray tap is a stroke on the card. Before each move, say what it is for. If you cannot, do not make it.
2. Reach for the long slide
A tap moves every tile between it and the gap, for one move. Shifting three tiles one at a time costs three moves and the long slide does the same job for one. When a whole row needs to shuffle along, tap the far tile.
3. Read the gap first
Only the gap's row and the gap's column can move. That is at most eight tiles out of twenty-four. So the useful question is never "where do I want this tile?" It is "which tiles can I move right now, and where will the gap be afterwards?" Each slide also relocates the gap to the tile you tapped, which decides what you can do next.
4. Look for the pattern that is nearly there
A pattern counts anywhere on the board. With eight tiles of each colour, some part of the board is usually two thirds of the way to it already. Scan every row and column for two of the right colours side by side in the right order, then ask what it costs to bring the third. The closest spot is often not the one next to the gap.
5. Mind the direction
Patterns are never rotated or mirrored. Red, yellow, green is not green, yellow, red, and a row is not a column. Check the order before you spend moves assembling the wrong thing. It is the most common way to burn five moves on easy.
6. Try it, then take it back
Undo is free, and sliding a tile straight back cancels the move rather than adding one. So test a slide, look at the board it gives you, and reverse it if it did not help. The one exception: a move that completes a round is final, because the round is banked the moment the pattern appears.
7. Use the hint as a compass
The hint under the pattern shows how many moves the current round needs from the board in front of you. Reveal it once and it stays for the round, updating after every slide. Make a move and look again. If the number went down, you are on a shortest route. If it stayed the same or went up, take the move back. Hints are counted, but they never add to your score.
8. Glance at Next before you finish
The board carries over, so how you finish a round is how you start the next one. When two finishing slides cost the same, look at the Next preview and pick the one that leaves those colours closer together.
9. Play it again
Only your best run counts, and the second attempt at the same board is where the learning happens: you already know which patterns are coming. After a run, open "How par did it" to watch the par line slide by slide, then replay and try to match it.
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