The fastest way to get better at PaneSlide is not to swipe faster. It is to swipe later. A few seconds spent looking at the board saves several wasted moves, and in PaneSlide every move counts towards your stars. This guide is a simple routine you can use on any daily or level.
Step 1: find where each pane must end up
Every PaneSlide puzzle has exactly one final arrangement that matches the picture. So start with the end. Look at the target picture and ask, for each colour, which pane could have made it.
- A cell that is plain cyan, magenta or yellow is covered by exactly one pane of that colour.
- A blue cell is cyan and magenta together, green is cyan and yellow, red is magenta and yellow, and black is all three.
- An empty cell in the picture must be empty on the board.
Because each pane only moves along one rail, its final spot is usually forced. A long ↔ cyan bar in row 2 can only ever cover cells in row 2, so the cyan cells in row 2 of the picture tell you exactly where it goes.
Step 2: check which panes are already right
Some panes may already sit in their final spot. Leave them alone. Moving a correct pane away and back costs at least two swipes, and par never includes wasted moves. In the move counter, par is shown next to your swipes; if par is 4 and only four panes are out of place, every one of them needs exactly one swipe.
Step 3: ask what will stop each pane
Now take each pane that needs to move and ask: if I swipe it now, where does it stop? Remember the glide and stick rules. A pane stops at the edge, before same-rail glass, or on the first new overlap with crossing glass.
There are three common answers:
- It stops in the right place already. Great: that swipe is ready.
- It glides too far. It needs a stopper. Look for a crossing pane that could be moved into its path first, so it sticks in the right cell.
- It stops too early. Something in the way makes it stick before its target. That blocker must move first.
Step 4: put the swipes in order
Steps 1 to 3 give you a little chain: "the magenta bar must move before the yellow block, because the yellow block needs magenta to stick on." Write that chain in your head, then do it. This is the "order" lesson from level 3.
Work backwards. If you are stuck, imagine the finished board and ask: which pane could have been the last one to move? It is a pane whose final spot is reachable with everything else already in place. Take it out of the picture in your mind and repeat. Reading the solution backwards is often easier than forwards.
Step 5: swipe, then check
After each swipe, glance at the board and the target again. If a pane did not stop where you expected, use Undo straight away. Undo puts the board back but does not give the move back, so it is best used to learn rather than to experiment blindly.
Common mistakes
- Moving the obvious pane first. The pane that already looks "nearly right" is often the stopper another pane needs. Move it too early and the other pane slides past.
- Forgetting same-rail blocking. Two ↕ panes in the same column can never pass each other. If they are in the wrong order, the puzzle needs a different plan.
- Ignoring sliding off. A pane resting on crossing glass does not stick when it leaves; it glides on to the next thing.
- Chasing the hint too soon. In levels, a hint shows the next best swipe and costs no stars, but you learn more if you try steps 1 to 4 first.
Practise on harder days
Daily puzzles get harder through the week: par is 4 on Monday, 5 on Tuesday and Wednesday, 6 on Thursday and Friday, and 7 at the weekend. Friday and weekend dailies are also chosen so that the obvious "fix the most cells now" approach does not reach par. They are the perfect place to practise this routine. Try the daily puzzle, or pick a past weekend from the archive for some no-pressure practice.
Ready for more? Advanced strategy covers counting swipes, building stoppers and the boss-level mindset.