How to play Peardrop

The pouring rules

• Tap a jar to lift out its top sweets, then tap another jar to tip them in. On a computer you can also drag from one jar to another, or press the number keys (1 to 9, then 0 for jar 10; arrows and Enter reach the jars after that).
• Sweets only go onto the same kind of sweet, or into an empty jar.
• All the matching sweets on top of a jar move together, as many as fit in the other jar. The rest stay behind.
• One tip is one pour, however many sweets move.

Jars of every size

Most jars hold four sweets. Tall jars hold five, short jars three, the big sweetie jar six and the little dish only two. Each jar shows its size on a tag under the shelf. There are always four of every sweet, so a short jar or the dish can never finish a kind: they are for juggling only. The big sweetie jar can hold a finished kind with room to spare, but only one kind.

Finishing

You are done when every kind of sweet sits alone in one jar. A finished jar gets a gingham lid and a paper label, and when the last one is sorted the shop bell rings.

Undo, restart and borrowing a jar

• Undo takes back your last pour, and undone pours do not count towards your score.
• Restart puts every sweet back where it started. Your score is the pours in your finishing line, so a restart costs nothing but time.
• Once a day you can borrow an empty jar of four from the back room. It makes the shelf much easier, so it adds three moves to your score and caps you at two stars.
• In the levels you have a small bank of spare jars, and you earn another for each new level you finish in par.

Scoring, par and stars

Your score is the number of pours in your finishing line, plus three if you borrowed a jar. Lower is better, and if two players tie the faster one ranks higher on the leaderboard. Every shelf is solved by our computer solver before it goes out, and the solver proves the fewest pours possible: that is par. Match par for three stars, finish within a few pours of it for two.

The week

• Monday and Tuesday are Easy: seven or eight kinds of sweet in jars of four, with two spare jars.
• Wednesday brings two short jars and the big sweetie jar, and Thursday the little dish with only one spare jar.
• Friday has ten kinds, Saturday tall and short jars, and Sunday is the big shop: eleven kinds of sweet with short jars and the big sweetie jar.

Tips

• Keep an empty jar free for as long as you can. It is the most useful thing on the shelf.
• Before you pour into an empty jar, ask which kind you want to build there. Moving a single sweet into an empty jar often wastes it.
• Look for the kind that is nearest the tops of its jars and finish that first: every finished jar makes the rest easier.
• Short jars and the dish are perfect parking spots for a sweet or two while you dig out what is underneath.
• If you get in a tangle, undo a few pours rather than restarting: undone pours are free.

Frequently asked questions

Is every puzzle solvable?

Yes. Every daily shelf and all 400 levels were solved by a search that proves the fewest pours, and that solution is kept. After you finish the daily you can watch it play out.

Is Peardrop colour-blind friendly?

Yes. Every sweet has its own shape and pattern as well as its colour, from the striped humbug pillow to the spiral liquorice wheel, so no two kinds look alike without colour.

Can I play more than once a day?

Your first finish of the daily shelf counts. The shelves have 400 more levels with stars, and the calendar keeps the last seven daily shelves to play for practice.

Does it work offline or with the sound off?

The sounds are made in your browser, and you can mute them with the speaker button. The daily needs a connection to start and to send your finish.

Is Peardrop free?

Yes. It is free, runs in your browser and needs no account.