Tents & Trees
Puzzle · 9 playsTents & Trees
Pitch one tent beside every tree, and never let two tents touch.
About Tents & Trees
A camping logic puzzle with a gentle surface and real depth beneath it. Every tree in the grid needs exactly one tent pitched directly above, below, left or right of it, and trees and tents pair up strictly one to one. No two tents may touch, not even at a corner, and the numbers along the edges give the tent count for each row and column. That no-touching rule does most of the heavy lifting once you learn to read it properly. Free to play in your browser — no download, no sign-up.
How to Play
Place one tent orthogonally adjacent to each tree; trees and tents pair up one to one. No two tents may touch, including diagonally. The numbers along the edges give the number of tents in that row or column.
Tips & Strategy
The one-free-neighbour rule places tents for free. If a tree has only one adjacent square still available — because the others are grass, off-grid, or already used — its tent goes there, no further thought needed. Every tent you place then blocks all eight surrounding squares, which frequently gives another tree only one free neighbour. Chase that cascade as far as it goes before doing anything cleverer.
Mark grass aggressively; empty squares are the enemy of clear thinking. Any square with no tree orthogonally adjacent to it can never hold a tent, so strike it out at the start. Rows and columns whose clue is 0 are entirely grass. Conversely, when a row's remaining free squares exactly equal its remaining tent count, every one of them is a tent.
Use the pairing, not just the counts. Tents and trees match one to one, so if two trees share only two candidate squares between them, those two squares hold both tents and every other tree must look elsewhere. The reverse is just as useful: if a group of three trees can only reach three squares, no fourth tree may use any of them.
Edges and corners are where boards break open. A tree in a corner has at most two candidates; a tree against a wall has three. Work the border rows and columns first, then push inward. And when you are stuck near the end, count: total tents equals total trees, so compare the sum of your row clues against the tents already placed, and the leftover almost always has just one legal home.