Overview

You solve your puzzles in the Play Room. You appear in this room whenever you select a puzzle in the Store Room and start playing it. During solving a puzzle you have various tools at your disposal that make your playing easier and more amusing.

Tips

• When you want to get back from the Play Room to the Store Room you do not have to worry about saving your puzzle. __PRODUCT_NAME__ saves automatically the present state of the game. When returning to the game you will find everything as you left it.
• If you made your puzzle from a video, a higher number of pieces may slow down the program.
• If there are more pieces in one heap, it is faster to poke it than to take it apart piece by piece.

_related_topics:

Main menu, How to play a puzzle, Solving a puzzle, How to make solving a puzzle easier

Main menu

In the Play Room there are a few functions prepared for you that make your playing easier. You can find them in the room main menu.

Ghost

Switches on and off the Ghost picture. Ghost is an image displayed under all the pieces on the background of the room.

Hot key: G

Image

Opens a new window with an image view.

Hot key: I (new picture)

Tools

Catch rest

Sorts pieces so as at the bottom there are multi-numerous groups of connected pieces and on the top there are separate pieces not connected. Those are highlighted. By this tool you can easily detect a piece hidden somewhere underneath.

Arrange

• At Edge
  Places pieces at the edge of the room desktop (in a spiral). Still it leaves already connected pieces on their place. As long as you do not use Disarrange, this command does not work with the pieces you have moved. Pieces are sorted by color and edge pieces are at the beginning.
• In Grid
  Spreads pieces evenly over the room desktop. Still it leaves already connected pieces on their place. As long as you do not use Disarrange, this command does not work with the pieces you have moved. Pieces are sorted by color and edge pieces are at the beginning.

Disarrange

Spreads pieces randomly on the room desktop. Still it leaves already connected pieces on their place.

Note: See also the poking tool.

Options

See Options.

Tray

Opens a new tray.

Hot key: T (new tray)

Help

Displays this help.

Back

Saves the game and returns you back to the Store Room.

Solving a puzzle

Moving piece

Every piece can be caught and dropped by the left mouse button in two ways:

1. Place the cursor above the piece, press and hold the left mouse button. Now you can move the piece arbitrarily but you still have to hold the left mouse button. Along with releasing the button you will drop the piece.
2. Place the cursor above the piece, click the left mouse button. You can move it again but it is not necessary to hold the left mouse button. This way is more suitable if you wish to move the piece for a longer time. The piece can be dropped by clicking the left mouse button again.

You can connect pieces together. The connection is accompanied with a sound and next to the cursor, an animated icon appears. You can move together connected pieces as one piece. At the bottom part of the screen there is information about the percentage you have already solved.

Turning piece

To turn a piece:

• Right
  Catch the piece and turn it by pressing the right mouse button or by moving the mouse wheel down.
• Left
  Catch the piece by the left mouse button and turn it by pressing CTRL key and the right mouse button or by moving the mouse wheel up.

Working with more pieces together

Sometimes you need to work with more pieces. To do it you need to:

• Place the cursor on an empty part of the room desktop.
• Press the left mouse button and drag the mouse over the area with pieces you wish to select. Then release the button. The chosen pieces turn red.
• With pieces selected in that way you can work as with one piece.
• If you wish to add a piece to those selected, press and hold CTRL key and click the certain piece with the left mouse button.
• For canceling your choice click the left mouse button on an empty part of the room desktop.

How to make solving a puzzle easier

When solving a puzzle there are various tools prepared for you - Ghost, Image, Arrange, Trays and poking. All can be found in the room main menu except poking.

Poking

By the Space key you can spread only the unconnected pieces near the cursor. Place the cursor on the pieces you wish to spread, press the Space key and hold. A circle will be formed around the cursor. You can move the mouse and spread the pieces anywhere on the room desktop. By releasing the Space key you finish the poking. This tool does not work with connected pieces.

Hot key: Space

Options

Background

Sets the desktop background color or pattern. This setting affects only the desktop background in the Play Room. It is useful to change the background if the default background and the puzzle are of a similar color.

• Default
  The background will be the same as in other rooms.
• Color
  The background will be filled with a color only. To choose the color click on the "Change..." button.
• Pattern
  The background will be created with a recurrent picture. To choose the picture click on the "Browse..." button.

Ghost

Sets the ghost position or opacity. It is usually used when you prefer a different arrangement of a ghost and unconnected pieces. You can, for example, locate the ghost on the left side and the unconnected pieces on the right side.

Position

Specifies the position of the ghost on the desktop.

Opacity

Specifies the opacity of the ghost.

Preview

Displays the preview of the ghost.

Set default

Restores all the settings to their original parameters.

Image view

It is a window with an image of the solved puzzle. You can enlarge the image view or you can cut out only a certain part of it and enlarge this part. You can gain a more detailed view of the image then.

Enlarging
Drag the edge of the window. To specify the extent of enlarging more precisely press the right mouse button on the window.

Cutting out
Press the left mouse button and by moving the mouse cut out the part of the picture you need. A new window where you can see only the cut part will be created.

You can repeat enlarging and cutting out and create more windows.

Hot key: V (displays or hides all windows with an image view)

Tray

Allows you to organize or separate unconnected pieces into groups. A tray is a kind of a side table where you can lay aside any number of pieces in accordance with your needs. You can have as many trays as you want: simply click Tray on the room main menu, choose a name for a new tray and drag pieces into it by the mouse. You can also minimize a tray and get more space for other pieces. You can bring pieces into a minimized tray: just put the piece(s) down the tray. All tools work in a tray (Catch rest, Arrange, Disarrange, poking). Just display the context menu by clicking the empty part of a tray.

Tip: Sorting is faster if you select more pieces and bring them all together into a tray.