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Whispers of Wonderland: reading the fog

Whispers of Wonderland is a minesweeper-style puzzle. Each floor is a grid shrouded in fog. You start at the IN tile in the top-left corner and must dispel the fog all the way to the OUT tile in the opposite corner. Hidden among the tiles are hazards called Malice, and each floor is checked by a logic solver before you see it, so every floor can be solved by reasoning and none of them needs a guess.

The three kinds of tile

• Safe tiles are the ones you want. Once revealed, a safe tile shows a number.
• Malice is a hidden hazard. Dispelling one with no Ward left loses the floor.
• Walls are impassable terrain, not hazards. Touching any tile of a wall reveals the whole wall section at no cost, so a wall is free information.

What the numbers mean

The number on a revealed safe tile is how many of the eight tiles touching it (including diagonals) hold Malice. Walls are not counted. A 0 therefore means all eight neighbours are free of Malice, so the fog spreads past it automatically. A 1 means exactly one of the hidden neighbours is Malice, and so on. That is all the information a floor ever gives you, and it is enough.

The fog rule

You may only dispel a hidden tile that touches a revealed safe tile (in any of the eight directions). That keeps the delve moving outward from where you have already been and means the next safe move is always close to what you know.

Basic deductions

1. The count is full. If a tile shows a number and you have already marked that many neighbours as Malice, every other hidden neighbour is safe.
2. The count matches the gaps. If a tile shows a number equal to the number of hidden neighbours it has, all of them are Malice.
3. Compare neighbours. If two adjacent numbers share most of their hidden neighbours, the difference between the numbers tells you about the tiles they do not share. A 1 and a 2 side by side, with one extra hidden tile on the 2's side, usually point to that tile.
4. Use the walls. A wall tile is never Malice, so a wall next to a number removes a possibility without any risk.

Wards

A delve starts with one Ward, up to a maximum of five. A Ward absorbs a hit from Malice, so it is a safety net and not a plan. Because every floor can be solved without guessing, if you ever feel you must guess, look for a deduction you missed first.

Shards and leaving

Each floor hides three shard tiles among its safe tiles, and each pays two Shards when revealed. OUT may be uncovered early, and when it is you are told the path is clear. You choose when to leave, so you can clear more of the map for shards before you go.

Guide mode and ranked delves

If you are learning, guide mode offers unlimited hints. Ranked delves count on the ladder, so they are the place to apply what you have learned. Walls and the difference between numbers take a few floors to get used to, and after that the floors read like sentences.